“The cameras go live to the nation in 1 minute … please tell us about your design concept …”

Arriving at a client to find five teams of cameramen with journalists is alarming. And being told to talk to five blinking red LEDs about your concept with 35 seconds of preparation time is certainly a new experience for me. Welcome to the world of Celebrity Wedding Ring Design!

Smile for the camera

Two months ago Demos – my boss – was on Taiwanese celebrity Tao Zi’s television show being interviewed. Unfortunately for him, he lost a bet which ended with him committing to design her wedding ring. Famous across Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and the whole Asian region (think Chinese Oprah), I am sure it seemed logical to ask a Brit designer with no jewelery experience to deliver the goods.

I knew on Thursday that the press release had been passed onto the media. Finding out it was in every major daily paper on Friday was rather a shock – especially since I had not seen it in the flesh at that point. I had been warned to dress up a bit on Friday (obviously, I still didn’t shave) but I was not so prepared to speak into six microphones at short notice with a brace of pretty interviewers fluttering around me. A blur.

As I left work, in a daze after the afternoon, text messages and phone calls started arriving from friends who had seen me on different channels (in between reports of the election – it wasn’t even a slow news day). I headed over to Nelson’s place to watch the TV and make use of the split screen function to keep track of the TV stations. Typically, two hours passed before I saw myself, and Nelson had to endure my jumping around pointing and screaming at the TV.

My five minutes of fame!