Shane Green and Julie Benz never really planned to run a jewellery business together. After a year's travelling, we opened our first craft and jewellery store, Uno, in 1991 on a back street of Chesterfield. Within a few years it had achieved national recognition from the Crafts Council. Shane studied jewellery making at Chesterfield College. His first collection of diamond set engagement rings were stunning, but they didn't sell too well. We realised that our little silver shop in Chesterfield just wasn't going to cut it, if we wanted to sell such prestigious jewellery.

In 1998, we spotted a small semi derelict building in the centre of Sheffield. We took out a loan and bought the building on Division Street. Whilst renovating it, we found that it would have been cheaper to knock it down and start again. After many stressful months, we managed to open our first purely jewellery store, Green + Benz, in October 1999. It was a real coup for us to be able to stock the designs of leading avant garde European designers, such as Niessing. We were overwhelmed with people looking for modern platinum engagement and wedding . Flatteringly, in the first few weeks of opening The Independent sent a reporter up to see what what happening in Sheffield and he described our small store as "making Cartier look Jurassic".

The interest in what we were doing was so great, that we started to advertise nationally. We knew we just had to open a second Green + Benz. Manchester opened in 2002, was a success from day one. Its size meant that we could display a wider choice of jewellery that we could at Sheffield. When we had started the Sheffield store, we'd squeezed the workshop into the top floor of the building. So when a huge freehold property came available just off the market place in Chesterfield, we leapt at it. We felt a strong attachment to the town where we'd opened our first store. If it hadn't had been for the support of people in Chesterfield in the early days, then we'd never have had a business to grow. Fortunately, our new Chesterfield store has also gone from strength to strength.

You can contact Julie direct by emailing: julie@greenandbenz.com

You can contact shane direct by emailing: shane@greenandbenz.com