A PROMISE of “fair pricing, ethical origins and outstanding craftsmanship” has been made by a venture bidding for success in two titles at The Press Business Awards.

Made-to-order jewellery company Nightingale, launched in York in January following a chance meeting between Stephen Nightingale, who had been in the jewellery trade since the 1960s, and entrepreneur Ryan Atkins, has entered the Business Innovation and Socially Responsible Business of the Year categories.

Specialising is engagement and wedding rings, Nightingale can be found online or in its appointments-only studio. Customers get to meet one of its designers and can customise every aspect of their jewellery, and the company says “we stretch your budget much further, meaning you get a bigger, better diamond for your budget”.

This is achieved through state-of-the-art ecommerce and order management systems which provide “huge operational efficiencies”, the absence of high-street shops and staff and a production capability optimised for producing one-off pieces so funds are not tied up in stock - “we make to order, keeping our operating costs down, and passing on the saving”.

Nightingale says it is also a pioneer by introducing laboratory-grown diamonds to the UK and Europe. “These diamonds are chemically and visually identical to mined diamonds. Obvious benefits of lab-grown diamonds include their supremely ethical origin. We don’t need to mine them and they are far removed from issues around identifying conflict diamonds.”

Future plans include opening a showroom and design studio in York city centre next month, and the launch of Born Diamonds, a new brand focused solely on retailing lab-grown diamonds across Europe.