Margot McKinney is one of the few independent high jewellery designers working outside Paris and Geneva while remaining fully integrated into the global market. Her pieces quickly entered American luxury retail, including Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, and The Peninsula Beverly Hills.
Margot McKinney OAM is a high jewellery designer based in Brisbane, Australia, and a fourth-generation representative of the McKinney’s family business in Queensland, founded by her great-grandfather John in 1884. She began creating jewellery in the late 1990s and launched her eponymous brand in 2007.
Her work departs from Parisian restraint, instead reflecting a direct connection to nature. Its visual language is built around Australian South Sea pearls, often of rare size and baroque form, alongside opals and large coloured gemstones. She chooses saturated hues that are not softened but intensified. The brand consistently links this aesthetic to the landscapes, vivid colours of her homeland, and the light of Australia.
Margot McKinney’s collections are defined by a distinct expressiveness — a freedom of self-expression manifested through bold decisions in colour, scale, and texture, unlike anything else in high jewellery.
In 2022, she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM). Her work has extended beyond the showcase format: the exhibition World of Wonder: Margot McKinney at the Museum of Brisbane was dedicated both to her creations and to the 140-year history of the family house.
Margot approaches jewellery not as an accessory, but as the centre of composition — an object around which the image, the space, and even the conversation are constructed.
TEFAF Maastricht
Margot McKinney made her debut at TEFAF Maastricht in 2025.
Marina Collier became the central piece of her first presentation. The necklace is inspired by the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea of Australia. At its centre are three significant stones: a seafoam aquamarine of 241.14 ct, a green beryl of 109.48 ct, and another aquamarine of 65.72 ct. The composition is complemented by 29 rare Australian South Sea baroque pearls, set in 18-karat gold. The total gemstone weight exceeds 400 carats.
The piece is structured around a marine theme, where colour, light, and depth function as a unified system rather than decorative elements.
Bloem
The central work at TEFAF 2026 was the Bloem Collier. Borrowing the Dutch word for “flower,” it references the rich floral traditions of the Netherlands.
The necklace is built around eight significant tourmalines (totaling 240.56 ct), including a central stone of 65.85 ct. It is complemented by a collection of 27 large Australian South Sea baroque pearls: twenty-six pearls in the double strands measure 15–20 mm, while one particularly rare pearl, measuring 21 × 32 mm, is positioned as the focal point beneath the central stones.
The composition is completed with white and brown diamonds, sapphires in blue, pink, and purple hues, pink tourmalines, amethysts, and rubellites, all set in 18-karat yellow gold.
A structural feature of the piece is its transformability: the lower element featuring the baroque pearl can be detached and worn as a brooch. The dimensions of the necklace are 28.3 × 18 cm.
In its visual language, Bloem is a botanical composition. The necklace is constructed around the form of a flower in full bloom, with emphasis on asymmetry, volume, and organic opulence.
Margot McKinney’s aesthetic is grounded in bright sunlight, richly saturated natural colours, and the contrast between dry land, ocean, and sky. The light within the gemstones and their transparency become key expressive elements, while colour structures the entire composition.
At her stand at TEFAF Maastricht, Margot McKinney personally presented the collection — a rare format of direct author presence in high jewellery. She is a woman of remarkable beauty. Her appearance — precise, composed, with a clear and attentive gaze — resonates harmoniously with her work. This alignment of the inner and the outer may explain why her jewellery is perceived not as decorative objects, but as autonomous, almost living structures.
Helen Mirren in Bloem and Marina Collier
Helen Mirren has worn Margot McKinney on at least two occasions.
At the Cannes Film Festival 2025, she appeared in the Marina Collier at the premiere of Colours of Time, styled with a custom Badgley Mischka gown, an aquamarine bow belt, and a fascinator by Karen Millen.
In January 2026, at the Golden Eve event in Beverly Hills, she chose the Bloem Collier.
Positioning
In these works, an important shift becomes evident: jewellery no longer serves the image. Instead, it defines the scale around which everything else is constructed — from styling to the perception of the wearer.
Margot McKinney thus occupies a position at the intersection of high jewellery and collectible objects — a space where TEFAF today articulates its key meanings.
Images: personal archive ( TEFAF Maastricht 2026); courtesy of Margot McKinney; Helen Mirren images sourced from publicly available materials
