KZN jewellery designer turns disappointment into gold and diamonds

'I couldn't let rejection break me'

- By Mzwandile kaBizokwakhe and Nkuluko Ncana

The most common picture of a woman making jewellery in South Africa will include beads and twine, but not if it has Noxolo Mseleku in it. The Ilovu-born KwaZulu-Natal lass ventured into the shiniest of forever metal industries - diamonds and gold.

Mseleku didn’t let the disappointment of not making it into the architecture programme at the University of Johannesburg break her. She took an uncharted route via the scenic plains of Tuscany, the home of architecture in Italy, where she spent two years between 2015 and 2017 on a jewellery scholarship, and later in Antwerp in Belgium.

“I am definitely a sucker for romance and beautiful things, but what inspires me most are gemstones,” she said.

With the lemons of rejection, Mseleku made lemonade.