She’s best known for her days as a DJ on 2FM but now Canadian born Jenny Huston has created her first jewellery line.
We caught up with the presenter and chatted all about her new venture…
Tell us about leaving 2FM, was that a difficult decision?
Yeah, it really was. I really loved it. That was the thing, I loved it so much so I though ‘What will I do when this ends?’. Even though there was no sign of it ending, I couldn’t picture myself as a 50 year old rock DJ and I think when you can’t picture it you wonder can the bosses picture it.
So I just thought that I probably need to change direction at some stage and I’ve got the guts to do it now while I’m young enough so maybe I should do it now. The voluntary redundancy had been posted on the internal server and I just started to feel excited.
New venture: Jenny is launching her own jewellery line | VIPIRELAND.COM
I just started to think I could travel, I could do this, I could do that so I just went with that gut feeling. It wasn’t because I didn’t love it anymore, I did, I really loved it and I knew I’d miss it and I do miss it. It was just time for a change.
Are you still in touch with the 2fm gang?Â
Yeah I am, hopefully they will come along to the launch. You know I saw Cormac Battle and Dan Hegarty down at Electric Picnic and stuff like that.
My best friends are still producers on 2fm. They produce Tubridy and the new night time shows. I was talking to Ruth Scott on email so hopefully I’ll see a few of the old faces.
There’s a lot of new people on 2FM now, like Nicky Byrne. What do you think of their new stars?
I think they probably did have to try and do something different. when your audience ages with the presenters it’s tricky you always want to get the younger people in and that’s what they’re trying to do. I really hope that it works for them.
New faces: Jenny says she misses rock music from 2FM
For me, I miss some of the rock on the station. It seems to have disappeared during the week but yeah, by all accounts their seems to be good energy in the place and it’s great to see new people getting a chance in radio.
I’m really happy to see that and I am always delighted to see more female voices on radio so fingers crossed it will go well for them.
Where did the inspiration come from for the line?
It came from frustration more than anything. I’d been broadcasting from all the festivals and things like that and when your sitting beside rockstars and sometimes you think ‘Oh god, what am I going to wear?’ you know they’re going to look naturally really cool so you would always be looking for a piece of jewellery that might stand out on the video and it was really hard to find that.
You might get it on the high street but then a couple of days later all the plating would wear off. So I started getting sick of spending all my money on this junk jewellery that ended up in the bin. And I was looking for nice jewellery on the high street but it was always very conservative because pearls aren’t very rock n’roll and tiny little flowers and things like that aren’t very edgy.
Inspiration: Jenny wants to make jewellery people want
I just found that there wasn’t much catering to people like me so I thought surely there are other people like me that want something a bit cooler that is actually good quality. So I was talking to my mom about having a ring made – I kind of wanted a big ring that’s really simple to wear everyday and she said: ‘Listen Jenny, you seem to know what you want, you should just design your own collection, it’s not like you don’t know any goldsmiths.’
She just put the idea in my head in February. So I really thought about it and then in March I thought ‘Well maybe I’ll take a start my own business course,’ so I just kind of went for it and it’s happened really quickly.
Did your mom help you with the process?
Absolutely, my mom is a brilliant goldsmith and she’s a dermatologist as well and she’s trained goldsmiths in Ireland as well for years. She really helped out with all the master models creating the prototypes of all the early designs and still is involved with the casting  and making of the master models so yeah a huge help.
What is it about jewellery that you love so much?
I think it’s just the extra little way to express a bit of personality. Nowadays, we sort of tend to buy clothes all from the same place – we could all be wearing a black t-shit and black jeans. Whether you’re a guy or a girl a t-shirt and jeans is what we all wear so it’s all those little things that make you stand out.
Dreams: Jenny wants the line to go international
Guys often in the world of music wear pins and badges and things like that. More and more I think guys are wearing jewellery or like if you’re wearing a suit the only thing that is different about you is your cufflinks or your tie and I think you really see that in the news, say John Snow started really making a statement with his tie and then you see a lot of other celebrities with their suits wearing flamboyant socks. I think men want to express themselves a lot more with their clothing as well and jewellery is a great way to do that.
What’s your big dream for the line?
I’d really love it if it caught on as a niche worldwide. I know everybody has the dream of worldwide but you think you know the trendy people of New York, London or Melbourne or Vancouver.
It would be great. It’s not a mainstream thing – it won’t be for everybody. I think it’s for people who don’t want to wear flowers. I’ve nothing against flowers but It’s kind of a flower free zone. At first I was like ‘No hearts’ but in fact I do have hearts but I’ve a new ring coming along that I am really thrilled with. It’s a stacking ring and it’s all sort of based on poker so there’s the hearts and diamonds, spades and clubs so it’s in the mix.
Would you ever consider going back to radio?
Yeah, absolutely. Never say never. I’d love to be able design collections by week and do a show once a week- whether it’s magazine style, talk or music. So yeah, maybe I’ll get back to radio in the future.
