Semper Augustus — Luxury Jewellery (Charity eCom)

Semper Augustus was a New York-based luxury jewellery brand where every purchase supported a partner non-profit. The founder wanted a digital experience that felt as premium as the product, while making the charitable mission visible at every touchpoint.

The brand went on to attract coverage from I-D and US Weekly, with pieces worn by Amanda Seyfried. It later merged into its sister brand, Mad Fine (covered in a separate case study).

Three core deliverables:

Luxury Shopify storefront that reflected the brand's premium positioning and social mission

Automatic charitable giving integrated into checkout, so every order triggered a donation to the relevant partner charity

"Build Your Own" necklace configurator allowing customers to pair chains and pendants into custom pieces

I started with wireframes in Figma, mapping out the key pages around two priorities: showcasing the jewellery and surfacing the charitable impact.

Homepage: Editorial imagery, current collections, and charity partner highlights

Product pages: Zoomable photography with concise copy focused on craftsmanship and the cause behind each piece

Configurator: A dedicated section where users could build custom necklaces in real time, selecting pendants and chain styles

The visual direction used a black-and-white palette with warm neutrals, paired with refined typography to keep the tone luxurious without feeling cold.

Built on Shopify with a modular, section-based architecture:

Storefront: Fully responsive build translated directly from the Figma prototypes

Charitable giving integration: Automatic donation logic wired into checkout, with transparency for the customer on exactly where their contribution goes

Necklace configurator: Custom-built tool with real-time visual updates as users designed their piece

$1,000+ average order value, driven by the merchandising strategy and smooth customer journey

National press coverage in I-D and US Weekly, with celebrity support from Amanda Seyfried

Strong customer engagement with the configurator and positive feedback on the charitable giving model

The founder also ran Mad Fine, a sister jewellery brand I was building in parallel. In late 2024, Semper Augustus merged into Mad Fine, consolidating both brands into a single storefront. The necklace configurator originally built for Semper Augustus was repurposed for Mad Fine, overhauled with the new product catalogue and integrated into the merged site. The modular Shopify architecture built in this phase carried over cleanly, and the merged site launched on February 1, 2025. That project is documented separately in my Mad Fine case study.