Franki Ryder

Designer Biography:

Franki Ryder grew up surrounded by art and over the span of 35 years developed her craft at designing everything from clothing and interiors, to graphics and websites, whilst continuing her relentless sketching passion for jewellery design, using nature as her canvas.

Her entrepreneurial spirit for travel and appreciation for all aspects of design, helped to forge her very creative and diverse careers within the design industry.

This is her story.

After graduating from Art School in Cheltenham and then a degree in Fashion, Business & Marketing at the University in East London, she started a small jewellery business with a fellow allumni at The Camden Markets in London, which expanded to Student Unions across London.

In 1995 she went travelling to Japan for her career and on the way back took a detour to Australia, falling in love with the sun and the sea.

In Sydney, the fast paced web world had begun and she saw an opening to create a business specialising in animation and web design and opened an advertising agency in the heart of the city.

Bali Bound:

With 12 years in the advertising industry under her belt, she headed for the shores of Bali, to see if a change of pace could create the spark of creative energy once more in a different direction.

Learning about a very unique culture and a language and learning how to develop a business in a third world country was the starting block for the first few years. While this was taking place, she took a side hustle as an interiors buyer for an offshore hotel chain in Vanuatu. This allowed her to scour the island of Bali, looking for unique suppliers and finding all different types of makers in the field of design.

Franki hanging with local in Tabanan Regency

In 2013, she saw the need for a community circle, to support others in her shoes  who were finding the same difficulty in culture assimilation. She set up 'The Sanur Springboard' to accommodate and facilitate speakers from all over the island to discuss everything from recycling and refuse management to fundraising for local communities.

In 2014, at one of these community meetings, she met a like-minded spirit, who was a jewellery designer and maker. They talked about their aspirations and what it would be like to build a school to teach people coming to the island, how to make a simple piece of jewellery as a reminder of their trip.

It was then that The Sanur Jewellery Studio was born.

Combining their own modern take on traditional Balinese and Javanese jewellery design styles, they crafted a wrokshop that was facilitated in a stunning tropical setting; providing half day, full day and week long classes, for aspiring creatives. 

Humble Beginnings - Sanur Jewellery Studio 2014

Our converted garage turned into our studio

By 2018, with several accolades under their belt from Trip Advisor, magazines Indonesian Expat and The Yak, as well as press newsagency NineMsn Travel and KLM Airlines, who called it "The best thing to do on holiday in Bali," they started to consider building a bigger workshop, studio and selling space. The idea was to take the very best of the students and showcase their work, offering them a chance to sell their designs to other visitors.

Award Winning - Aussie girls on a silver course at the school

Bali Women in Business Group

In the same year, Franki wanted to start something for local Balinese women, who wished to run their own businesses on the island but didn't know what or where to find the resources available. That inspired the birth of The Bali Women in Business Group.

She and two others, trained local women on free Google products and simple web design and implementation, got speakers in to talk about how to manage skills, time and staffing, as well as enabling introductions to angel investors to help get their businesses off the ground. With just a few members in early 2018, it grew to 800 members by the end of the year and a regular turn out of 200 members each month. 

In late 2018, her partner stepped out of the jewellery school business to move back to her home town in Europe, while things started to hot up on the island, with inquiries from the big brand 'Chanel,' in Hong Kong, to do private classes ....and then the dream meeting with a global partner, to start building the dream charm workshop journey. This would enable Franki to combine her love of people, jewellery making and teaching, in a fun learning capacity, but on a bigger scale.

 

Our Jewellery School Dream Team

Turquoise Dragonfly - 1 day workshop 

Lotus & moonstone ring - 1/2 day workshop 

 In November 2019, she decided it was time to launch her own jewellery brand. She photographed her premier collection 'Labyrinth,' hoping to market her line of ocean-inspired jewellery, in the new shop that lay alongside the studio. Here she would create a journey from the studio, through to the workshop so you could see the making processes of her designs, landing in the store and then a private lunch afterwards in the tropical gardens.

But life was about to change forever.

At the beginning of March 2020, with family worried about the state of the world, she made a trip to UK, hoping to combine her stay with a sales trip to London to find stockists, but the scale of Covid-19 had other plans.

Photographing on site

 

 

 

Bali Door Closes....Another Opens:

Locked out of Bali, with only a suitcase of summer clothes and living in a tiny room in her family home, it was hard to see the future. Her close friends in Bali and Australia, kept her going with meditation sessions and zoom calls for support. 

By November 2020 it looked like it might last longer and so her staff boarded up the school in Bali, adopted out her dogs and re-rented out the house, while she continued to find places that would sell her jewellery designs as well as developing the online retail business in the UK.

Goal Setting and Reaching:

Not to sit back on her laurels, Franki asked for help from friends and family and from the Kickstarter platform, she got the funding needed. She started the push into the retail market with the few samples she had brought with her. Quickly they started to sell and she saw opportunity to keep some of her staff in jobs in Bali.

In July 2022, her unique coral pattern Labyrinth Cuff Bracelet design, won Top 100 Global Designer Award on the Etsy platform, through her Franki & Felix Etsy store and in 2023, was awarded Lux Magazine's 'Emerging High End Women's Jewellery Brand UK.'

Today, Franki Ryder (statement exclusive pieces) and Franki + Felix Jewellery (the pearl focused brand) are bright and vibrant. She continues to support maker families and develop her unique designs with the Bali artisans that understand her work. British and Balinese women are now firmly at the helm, steering it in the right direction as it grows, from it's making roots founded in Bali, to it's retail future brought to the UK.

The larger statement pieces in her collection are now available on this site, while the smaller more delicate pieces are available under the Franki & Felix Jewellery brand.