Our Story

How it all began

'My name is Alice Rivers Cripps and I started my business in 2004 after returning from living in Mexico. Fresh out of university and uncertain of what the future held I embarked on a soul-searching trip to Mexico with only $60 in my pocket. With little more than a yoga mat for a bed and the stars for a ceiling, I managed to find work with a group of local Mayan jewellers. Here I was taught the basics of jewellery making, which planted the seed for my future career. After nearly two years I finally earned enough money to pay for a flight back home to the UK.

Upon arriving back, full of inspiration, I decided to further develop my new found skills and dedicated all my spare time to learning and making jewellery - initially, working from a tiny cupboard under the stairs. It was sheer serendipity that lead me to experiment with alphabet steel stamps, an off the cuff purchase I made whilst rummaging in a junk shop one weekend. I started out by stamping my own name onto tin cans until I finally refined the process enough to stamp onto silver. It was an unconventional process that had never been done before.

The notion that each piece of jewellery could be so unique and personal to the wearer was what propelled me to continue with my making; and in time, friends and family started to request personalised pieces. Be it a newborn's name and weight, a couple's wedding date or a father's last words, the sentiments were unlike fleeting fashion pieces and actually had real meaning behind them. Making keepsakes that immortalise special moments in time is something that I felt a huge privilege to be a part of, which still holds true to all of us at Posh Totty Designs today.

Fast forward 15 years, I now live with my husband and two young boys in diverse, creative Brighton. Fuelled by my passion to make gift giving have real meaning, I have managed to grow Posh Totty Designs into a destination company for personalised gifts. We're proud to say that PTD now runs the largest jewellery workshop in the south and employs a predominantly female team of 50 fantastic staff (including my mum and husband). We have three shops in Brighton (offering same day personalised jewellery service) and our newest shop in Islington, London. It's very busy but I love what I do. Every new design is still worked on by me, and every order is made very much in the same way as I started; handmade and hand-stamped to order.