Channel 4 calls on independent jeweller to create extraordinary crackers

Television network will showcase the jewellery retailer’s skills when it airs a programme featuring the commissioned crackers on Wednesday.

Channel 4 has commissioned an independent jeweller to create a luxury set of crackers for its programme, ‘World’s Most Extraordinary Christmas Dinners’.

The television network asked Mark Hussey, the founder and owner of Hallmark Jewellers in Titchfield, to add a touch of sparkle to its festive show with crackers filled with silver cufflinks adorned in diamonds and rubies.

In total, the crackers have a £150,000 price tag, and can all be placed together to make a centrepiece.

Talking about the commission, Hussey tells local newspaper, The News: “A few years ago we created the world’s most expensive bauble and we were thinking about crazy things we could do this year when Channel 4 approached us. There is still a party hat and bad joke in the cracker but you also get a silver cuff which has 60 rubies and a one carat diamond. These are then placed on to a silver candelabra and when you light them the jewels create sparkles.

“We just thought it was a nice way to elevate a Christmas dinner and there are also six snowflakes which people can take home and put on their trees.”

Hussey, who has been in the jewellery business all his working life, had a camera crew follow him around London when he came to pick up the jewels. The jeweller said the pressure of having the team, and TV viewers, watching him, helped make the creation a masterpiece.

The crackers are currently at the firm’s retail shop in Titchfield.

Hussey says the pieces looks amazing in-store but he doesn’t anticipate it will sell.

The World’s Most Extraordinary Christmas Dinners will air on Wednesday at 9pm, where the independent jeweller will be joined by 150 nuclear submarine crew who will be eating Christmas dinner at the bottom of the ocean and Nasa astronaut Anne McClain who is preparing her Christmas Day meal for her trip to the International Space Station.‘

 

Stacey Hailes

Editor, Professional Jeweller

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