Gold bumble bees and eagle skulls fashioned from diamonds, rubies and silver; feathers in gilt and crystals encased in fine mesh; necklaces which look like a scarf Queen Guinivere might have worn; and delicate flapper-style head-dresses. These are just some of the examples of jewellery of the future on show this week at IJL - the International Jewellery London 2008 event at Earls Court.
Close to 800 exhibitors from all over the world are showcasing their collections in the Earls Court 2 pavilion. The established names dominate the main ‘boulevards’, but the eye is inevitably drawn to the newcomers who are turning a fresh creative eye on the possibilities of gems, stones and 21st century materials as jewelled adornment.
The key new designers are the four winners of the Bright Young Gems competition, now an established feature of IJL, which provides an important launch-pad for emerging talent.
Carla Shanks, for example, a graduate of Central Saint Martins and London’s Royal College of Art, crafted a collection inspired by the characters, music and ideas behind David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. The tale of unrequited love in the song ‘Llorando’, is expressed in delicate head-bands and caps, made from hundreds of tiny, pastel-coloured beads and crystals.
In complete contrast is the work of Laura Bamber, another Central Saint Martins graduate who began working on projects for Swarovski and Cartier while a student. Her Bright Young Gems collection plays with aesthetic interaction and symbols of gender to create ‘ornaments’ with strength and androgynous sensuality – such as a tiny bra, linked with chains, and a helmet-like hat, hand-crafted in metal.
The young Polish designer, now resident in London, Agnieszka Butter, based her ‘old and new’ collection on lace used for her bridal gown when she married two years ago. Fine, transparent, lace-like mesh is used for thin tubes into which are poured thousands of microscopic crystals, beads and chains, forming ropes and coils to decorate neck, wrist and head, each one fastened with a silken ribbon.
The final Bright Young Gem, Emily Richardson, like Laura and Carla, is also a graduate of CSM’s influential jewellery design course. Her collection is inspired by Busby Berkeley and features Art Deco-inspired necklaces and cuffs in fake ivory. Emily is designing for the eco-jewellery company, Cred and has recently completed an internship with the Royal jewellers, Garrard.
One of the more unusual stands amongst the more established ‘names’ is that of Shaun Leane, a talented goldsmith and silversmith, best known in fashion circles for his avant-garde and futuristic one-off pieces sculpted for the British designer, Alexander McQueen, and his collaboration with style icon, Daphne Guinness, on a complete, articulated set of ‘armour’ for arms, wrists and hands.
The first set, which Daphne has been wearing on the party circuit, is made in silver. A second, more elaborate version, encrusted with hundreds of pavé diamonds, is nearing completion.
Leane, who recently opened his first South-east Asian store in Tokyo, is showing a host of new designs, best described as ‘maverick luxury’. These include his ‘Aurora’ collection, inspired by the Aurora Borealis, featuring sets of cocktail rings in 18ct white gold with purple sapphires, pink tourmalines, rhodalite, morganite and white diamonds; and ‘Gypsy Moth’, which is a nautical range of silver or gold ‘ropes’ mixed with Botswana agate.
Tribal Art Deco references the fusing of 1920’s style with ‘lariats’, tassels and tusks, in onyx beads, cultured pearls and black and white diamonds, while ‘ Eagle’, inspired by the skull and feather head-piece Leane created for McQueen’s 2006 catwalk show in Paris, features miniature eagle skulls, claws and beaks hand-crafted in oxidized silver, pearls and gold.
The talented Chinese designer, Fei Liu, who trained at Birmingham School of Jewellery, offers a contemporary mix of ‘East-West’, in his collection, in which stylized orchids and articulated, architectural forms are perfected by computer and then crafted in exotic potions of 18ct black gold, Tahitian pearl, platinum, mother-of-pearl, garnet, citrine and diamonds.
Fei Liu, who won the First Prize Kayman Award of the British Jewellery Association and was the first Chinese designer to win First Prize in the Goldsmiths’ Craftsmanship & Design Awards, will stage his first solo exhibition in Beijing in October to mark the opening of his store in the Chinese capital.
Alex Monroe, meanwhile, who was awarded Designer of the Year at the UK Jewellery Awards 2008, has sought his inspiration in woods and fields. One of his current best-sellers is a life-size bumble-bee in gold on a gold chain, which was based upon an actual bee caught in Iken, Suffolk, by his three daughters, aged 10, 9 and 7. The ‘bee’ is one of the best-sellers at Liberty, while his gold hoop ‘feather’ earrings are selling as fast as net-a-porter.com can take delivery. Other ‘enchanted creatures’ in Monroe’s collection include snails and dragon flies, set amidst delicate settings of jewelled twigs, rocks and moss.