Dorothée Contour
Portrait
Founder and CEO of JEM, the first French house of ethical and contemporary jewellery
I was born into a family that taught me to look towards others and passed on to me a will to lead my path. The desire to participate in a movement of progress, full of meaning and otherness, finally brought me to entrepreneurship, almost by chance.
My encounter with ARM made me aware of the fundamental issues at stake in gold mining, while at the same time discovering a real, concrete solution from the field. This was the trigger, the origin of JEM and of my passion for the past 10 years: to make this new way of jewellery emerge, so full of hope and true transformation.
What was the trigger for the creation of your brand/service?
JEM was born from a material, ethical gold.
Gold from artisanal and responsible mining, discovered through a meeting with ARM (Alliance for Responsible Mining), and Amichoco, two solidary organizations behind the very first eco-responsible programs and standards for artisanal mining, which led to the creation of the Fairminded label in 2014.
From the exchange with these mining communities, from the realisation that Gold production - and therefore jewellery – to the forefront of important social and environmental issues. The discovery of their incredible work to transform the industry gave rise to the project to invent a new jewellery, both sincerely and concretely committed and resolutely modern and inspiring.
JEM was born in 2009. To this unique material, Fairminded Ethical Gold, was naturally added the desire to defend French jewellery know-how and the conviction that jewelry is synonymous with commitment and a vision of tomorrow's world that is better than yesterday's.
Tell us a story about your brand.
JEM is in itself a beautiful story that continues to be woven through its encounters. With customers, craftsmen, designers, partners. One of the founding values of the brand is humanity, which is ultimately what interests me the most and what I believe will be a key element of its success.
I particularly like the time spent with each of our customers because it is precisely the discovery of particular stories, a moment during which the customers express their values, their journey, their desires.
People are fascinating.
What is the sustainable development challenge you are most proud of?
The traceability of our ethical gold from the mine to the jewel box that I mentioned earlier.
But of course, we have also succeeded in building a value chain that is sustainable, transparent and desirable.
Thus our jewelry workshop is French in order to preserve a precious know-how that tends to be delocalized, our associated materials (packaging/com) are virtuous, and finally our reasoning on sustainability pushes us to conceive our jewellery in a logic of aesthetic durability, an essential form far from the usual marketing considerations and fashion phenomena.
Why can't anyone accuse your brand of greenwashing?
Because our commitments are verifiable and we work in complete transparency. The Fairminded label represents the best guarantee of quality and purity of our ethical gold.
Our manufacturing and traceability process allows us to preserve this gold from being mixed with gold that is not Fairminded. We cannot afford to do things by halves, for us it is obviously more complex, more costly, but ethical luxury is at this price.
We want to believe that one day our way of working will become a standard.
What is particularly exceptional about your brand?
Ethical gold is more precious than any other gold and therefore exceptional of course. Cultured diamonds combine the best of science and nature, honoring it rather than destroying it.
The purity of these materials gives them an additional, exceptional brilliance, which, combined with an essential aesthetic line, makes each piece of jewellery a new heritage, a symbol with meaning. A jewel full of empowerment on every side.
What else would you like our reader to know about you?
The world is truly changing.
Despite the troubled times, I truly believe that change is coming. I am an optimist.
