I had arrived in the storied city to share my pieces at The Jewellery Cut Live in association with Fuli Gemstones, an epic show where designers and jewelry lovers alike gather to admire beautiful objects.
Housed in The Royal Institution in London’s Mayfair, the space felt grand and celebratory -- a welcome change from the quiet of the past year. As I set up, it was impossible to ignore the heady euphoria charging the air as everyone chatted and laughed, greeting one another after so long spent apart. It felt like a little miracle.
Oh, I missed this.
Faces new and old streamed past, stopping to chat and try on pieces from my collections -- admiring rings on fingers, necklaces grazing collarbones, diamonds warmed on skin.
I was there, in part, to premiere my new collection, Cipresso, and I was thrilled to see people wearing it, loving it, and talking about it. Earlier in the year, I’d come to the inspiration for Cipresso after months of uncertainty. Each day a path slowly became more illuminated until I found myself at the foot of a cypress tree. The sturdy branches radiated steadiness and serenity. Its form echoed the tapestry stitches my grandmother had taught me.
But then the trick was translating that world into metal and stones. How do you conjure the same feeling in vastly different materials? How do you retain the magic? I sketched and sketched until I came to a four-sided shape, an abstract cypress. A line down the center -- the trunk, the stability.
The collection is formed from three different colored golds: rose, white, and yellow. I decided to incorporate brushed gold into Cipresso. It’s a matte finish that evokes antiquity -- it gives the metal a lush and ancient feeling. Some of the pieces are silhouetted by sparkling diamonds, like candles on the branches of a cypress tree.
Every detail, every element, is carefully considered -- the feeling, the numbers, the way the light hits -- because when you wear these pieces, they’re not only objects of beauty, but also tokens of connection.
Though all of my collections have a specific inspiration, connection is my eternal muse: connection with others, connection to the body, connection to the earth. Each piece I create embodies all the ways we are attached to the world -- the materials remind us of the ground beneath our feet, the weight of it on our skin reminds us of our body, the existence of it reminds us that roots connect us all together -- strangers, family, friends.
And so, I stood in London, feet on the ground, surrounded by jewelry and love and life.
Connected to it all.
