Create your own soundtrack with the playful taps and rolls of interactive jewellery
Jewellery really comes alive when its gemstones are cast free of traditional settings.
Circles in motion and caged enclosures are revealed as grown-up treasures that speak to childlike eyes and ears, as they throw accepted treatments and standard prongs to the wind.
Interactive creations that move at a touch are proving themselves as jewellery that is both playful and exceptionally complex. The most common invitation for jewellery to move at the moment comes at the whim of the wearer, who can direct spheres by will.
Thirty-something Bibi van der Velden, a peripatetic creator with studios in the Netherlands, Switzerland, France and Thailand, has a fine art background that has seen her undertake studies in Florence, the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, and the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague. With a mother who is a sculptor, her earliest memories are of freshly cut stone, so her materials are often arrived at from an artist’s vantage point. Van der Velden’s long fascination with clouds and stars brings a whimsical element to her Galaxy collection’s Mammoth Galaxy necklace, which features a spinning ball made of mammoth tusk, set with opals and white diamonds.
Annoushka’s Mythology Globe Amulet is another necklace with a similar approach: a pendant Earth mainly moves with the finger’s accord; while twirling relies principally on gravity and gait.
The Brilliant collection is Fernando Jorge’s first venture into diamond jewellery and a departure from his previous colour-rich work with opals and other gems. The inspiration came to the London-based Brazilian jeweller through his observations of the natural radiance of diamonds and an interest in playing on the ubiquity of the brilliant cut to see it in more unexpected treatments; in this case graduating stone sizes, rhythmically placed on delicate gold structures.