Meet the Designer

Ruth Benjamin-Thomas | Gemstone Merchant & Designer

Ever since I was a girl, I’ve been obsessed. I come from a long line of traders and merchants — early African explorers and settlers on one side, bankers and diamond miners on the other. Their energy and relentlessness, in the pursuit of the new, course through me.

I remember watching my grandmother get ready, glittering with diamonds, a red lip, and a perfectly matched outfit. It was then I learned that personal style — not fashion — is the armour of confident women.

Jewels have always been part of that story. In the 80s of my school days, it was costume jewelry: plastic earrings, big beads, unapologetic colour. At university, I shifted to silver and rediscovered the African glass beadwork of my heritage — beads that tell stories of brides, mothers, and powerful women. Pieces that were crafted specifically for women in my family. They weren’t expensive, but they were thoughtful, distinctive markers of personal identity.

Years later, when I fell in love with the family business of opal, I found myself drawn into the full spectrum of gemstones. Diamonds, to me, have always been a highlight, a frame, for my first love: color. Over the past 30 years I have explored this world alongside opal. Visiting and meeting artisanal miners, merchants and cutters throughout the world. My regular travels keep me in constant contact with the heart and soul of this unique industry made of families - some in their third and fourth generations.  

Today, Kindred Color is the culmination of that lifelong fascination. It’s the meeting point of history and modernity, of craftsmanship and emotion. Every piece is an exploration of form, meaning, and self — a love letter to the women who wear their confidence like a jewel.