A first-year jewellery student at Birmingham City University (BCU) has been chosen by Argos to produce an exclusive jewellery collection, which will be sold nationwide from January 2015.

Ruth Hallows of County Durham fought off competition from 48 other students from the Birmingham School of Jewellery at BCU to scoop the prize with her Pearl Swiril collection. Hallows said of her win: “I’m thrilled that Argos picked my collection. To be recognised by such a prominent retailer means a lot to me and I am really looking forward to seeing my designs in stores around the country.” Argos challenged the school’s first-year students to design a four-piece capsule jewellery collection reflecting Argos’ forecasted trends for SS15. The students were then given four weeks to create prototypes for their collection to present to the Argos jewellery buying team. Argos, said to the UK's largest high street jewellery retailer, will work for six months with Hallows to develop the range. She will work with Argos manufacturer Optima, where she will spend time learning the process of how her jewellery collection will be developed from design through to production. Argos jewellery buying manager Alice Rigby said: "The students came back with some fantastic designs. We were blown away by their creativity. However Ruth’s beautiful Pearl Swirl jewellery collection really stood out to us as a winning range. She’s clearly thought very hard about what would appeal to our customers and considered upcoming jewellery trends. We think our customers are going to love this collection as much as we do.” Hallows added: “It has been a great experience learning how to design jewellery for a national audience and create a collection to go into production. It really is going to get my jewellery design career off to a flying start.” Hallows will be dedicated a section within the 2015 Argos catalogue, detailing her collection and profile about her win. Zoe Robertson, course director for the BA Jewellery Design and Related Products at Birmingham City University’s School of Jewellery said: “Working with Argos has been a wonderful opportunity for our first-year students to get a real hands-on experience of creating jewellery for a top retailer. Argos has offered them guidance and advice on upcoming trends, pricing, materials to use and thinking about the end customer. It’s really beneficial for our students to learn about the jewellery retail market through a well-established brand, and to gain expert knowledge about future career opportunities." Rigby added that Argos is committed to supporting young talent and the next generation of UK jewellery designers. To date, a number of fresh talents have been selected for its Designers at Argos collections, including Jessica Flinn, Allumer, Lynn Rodgers and Paul and Yu Lan Burkmar.

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