You can’t have failed to notice all the Nellies around town. The first I spotted was being carried down Old Bond Street by a couple of puffed-out looking men. I used to take photos of them, but that became boring, as there are so many - from Coutts Bank, The Strand, to your more mundane hangouts - two hundred and fifty, to be exact.
Do you know why these elephants are decorating our city? Because I didn’t until I recently bumped into illustrious jewellery designer Dominic Jones. Due to the rapid growth of Asia’s towns and cities the Asian elephant’s habitual migration routes are exposed.
This July the colourful elephants will be auctioned at Sotheby’s in aid of Elephant Family, a charity set up by Mark Shand (brother of Camilla Parker-Bowles), to raise funds to develop ‘corridors’ that will allow the elephants to rekindle their age-long migration process, and avoid extinction.
To complement the emerald elephant that has taken up temporary residence in Selfridges’s Wonder Rooms, some high profile British Jewellery designers, including Dominic Jones, were asked to create an emerald piece, which will also be auctioned as part of The World Land Trust’s involvement in the charity.
Yesterday Daisy Lowe, Pixie Geldof, Florence Welch, Andrea Dellal and Alice Dellal turned up to model the emerald designs next to the Emerald Queen elephant in Selfridges.
Dom’s emerald ring (pictured) is in 22-carrot white gold, hand engraved with the pattern of stingray and black ruthenium plated. The two halves mean it can be worn in lots of different ways.
