Who is Blue Jean Baby?

I'm Mandy and I am Blue Jean Baby.  I’m an American living in England, a dreamer and wanderer, avid reader, writer of poetry and prose, award-winning interior designer, and I’m the person behind every piece in the Blue Jean Baby collection.  

It was my relationship with my grandmother that inspired the name and grounding principles for this business.  She, always trying to tempt me into frilly dresses and patent shoes with little lacy socks.  Me, ever present in well-worn jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers.  She never judged, she only smiled with her deep blue eyes, and loved me without condition.  In my adult life, I came to realise one of her defining characteristics, that she found joy and beauty in the simplicity of every day.  Alongside this realisation was that she unwittingly passed this on to me.  For this, I am eternally grateful, for it influences every aspect of how I live my life.  I was her Blue Jean Baby and she was my quietly strong and funny, loving guide.  Today, in countless ways, she lives within me and those who loved her.

When I first moved to England in 2013, I used every spare moment to travel far and wide exploring little stone cottages whose chimneys smoked with coal and stately homes brimming with finest fabrics and furniture in unabashed splendour.  I wandered gardens, rolling countryside, listened to the birds, walked my dogs endlessly through fields and by rivers, relishing every moment of discovery.  With each step, I learned about England, architectural and cultural history, and, all the while, about myself.  

My design work took me across Europe sourcing one-of-a-kind objects for clients who, like me, care deeply about what surrounds them.  It was through that work, in auction rooms, at brocantes, in the cramped back rooms of dealers, that antique jewellery found me.  The same qualities I look for in exceptional decorative objects translate exactly the same: craftsmanship, character, rarity, patina, presence.  It's not about the things themselves, about a specific room's decor or piece of jewellery glittering in gold, but about the feeling you get when you're in that room or when you select a treasured piece of jewellery from its box to wear dressed up or casual.  Whether I'm putting together a home or selecting pieces for this collection, every decision is about the feeling behind it.

And then there's music!  The vitality and energy it brings to life, the elation of hearing a favourite song, the instantaneous emotion, mood, and energy you get from a piece of music is pure magic.  In creating the narrative for Blue Jean Baby, I've merged these two inspirations - the history, craftsmanship, and nuance of antique jewellery and the power and passion of music - to offer beautiful, one-of-a-kind antique and vintage jewellery.  Each piece in the collection is named after a song as inspiration for its next new chapter.

Blue Jean Baby is for people who want the things they wear to help tell their story, who aren't interested in what everyone else has, who understand that the right object, chosen carefully, is worth every penny, and for those who know that life is all about feeling.

I hope you find something here that's unmistakably yours.

Mandy Blue Jean Baby