As we head into the season’s golden phase, a jewellery style-shift beckons. From light, shimmering leather to abalone shell and vibrant semi-precious stones, this summer, independent designers are combining natural, man-made and precious materials to highly wearable effect.
Sterling Silver
Silver gleams in sunlight and, as it blends well with most skintones, it's a great choice for summer. That it's not as precious as gold allows for bigger pieces and those signs of wear, destined to add the unique, time-worn patina that adds a personal stamp. Belgian brand Lore Van Keer offers a covetable line in super-fine 18kt gold and precious-stone pieces. It also presents a seriously stylish collection of sterling silver jewellery. Each piece is responsibly made and goldsmith-created at the brand ateliers in Belgium and that, perhaps, gives the Lore Van Keer aesthetic its classic appeal. Yet, volumes are toyed with, semi-precious stones and diamonds are thrown into the mix, and there’s a defining architectural feel to the designs. Coupled with contrasting curves, cloudy moonstones, olive-green tourmalines and cognac citrines, the whole is an intriguing complete collection.
Faux-gem Fusion
Beads have always surfed the waves of popularity as a jewel choice. Their humble, often-organic, or plastic beach-jewel nature has tended to render them worthless in both monetary and style terms. Increasingly, however, leading houses, including Chanel and Dries Van Noten, are weaving them through collections. It’s a good moment to revisit the creations of Vicki Sarge who, as well as creating bespoke pieces for Rihanna, and catwalk jewels for designers such as Raf Simons and Erdem, was co-founder of famed costume jeweller, Erickson Beamon. This year, she established an eponymous boutique in South Kensington. While Sarge continues to create one-off commissions in her trademark fusion of faux gems, hand-painted stones, beads and gold- and silver-plate metals, the boutique is also designed as a springboard for a new generation of costume-jewellery designers. At present, the website doesn't quite live up to the boutique's wares, so it's worth popping in.
Casual Diamonds
New York-based Jade Trau is a former diamond buyer. But then, the casual way in which she incorporates them into her signature chain designs displays an expert’s lightness of touch. Trau also has a natural talent for layering, so that her ensembles never look too trend-driven. Here’s how she does it: 'When wearing necklaces, I generally start with our long “Betty” chain, as its malleable hook allows it to be worn at differing lengths. Then I would add a heavier link chain, and top everything off with a diamond piece.' When it comes to earrings, Trau is a self-confessed 'Queen of the huggies. In fact, I sleep in them, as I find them so comfortable.' Bracelets, she advises, should be simple, 'As sun-creams can get in the way'. Her go-to mix is a light, ID chain, slim, gold bangle and a heavy tennis-style diamond-bracelet. 'This wrist combo is my version of a tattoo as I never take them off.' As a final point, Trau advises keeping rings low-key. 'I prefer to wear one on my pinkie and another on my thumb.’
Precious Colour
A touch of candy colour in summer feels as good as a warm ray of light on the skin, and jewellery designer Kia Schwan offers a supremely elegant solution: diamond rings with lush geometric stacks of semi-precious hardstones, framed in gold and precious gems. Working in precision-cut stone rounds, the New York designer is, above all else, continually drawn to colour, 'I find a semi-translucent, lavender chalcedony just as alluring as a flawless diamond,' she admits. There’s architectural harmony in Schwan's trademark semi-precious stone stacks, too. The designer, who previously worked at Harry Winston and Tiffany & Co, is consistently enamoured by the beloved cityscape of her home city, citing it as a key design inspiration.
Carved Hardstones
Lito, the Greek jeweller who has worked for Jean Paul Gaultier and collaborated with L'Objet, has a gorgeously playful approach to jewellery. But then, not being professionally trained, she’s not shy of trying new things and embracing imperfection. Her "La Bouche" collection is made for summer, or indeed any celebration. It’s clear that the designer trained as a sculptor, as she was determined that her luscious lip pendants be carved in various hardstones, including pink quartz, ruby, aventurine and agate, so that 'they looked as real as possible'. Also, their opaque nature allows for sun-filled colour. 'It was important to me that the lips were full, both front and back, and that they sit perfectly on the skin, as a kiss should,' she adds. The stones were chosen to create different moods and feelings. 'You can have a light kiss, soft kiss, hard kiss, fun kiss – whichever kiss most suits your spirit,' she says.
Shell and Found Objects
A former ready-to-wear designer at Karl Lagerfeld, where she was a steady presence in his Paris studio throughout the 1990s, Clare Corrigan went on to work as costume-jewellery design director to Marc Jacobs. Her most recent stints have included creating catwalk jewels for Grace Wales Bonner (Spring 2023) and with Louise Trotter for Carven. The one-of-a-kind commissions she creates today brim with a vivacity that encapsulates her cultural passions, from David Bowie to Navajo American crafts, Andrew Grima and The Bauhaus' Anni Albers. In short, she admits to a 'love of humble materials and the way things achieve opulence through the way they are treated.' Corrigan particularly likes working with mother-of-pearl- like abalone shell, a prized material in Native American crafts, while her penchant for collected and found articles adds an Arte Povera character to her creations.
Gleaming Leather
So-Le Studio's sculptural earrings, rings, cuffs and necklaces are so expertly, precisely created that, at first glance, you don't question they are crafted in gold and silver. It’s always a surprise, then, to find that they are super-light to wear and actually made of leather. A Central Saint Martin’s graduate, Maria Sole Ferragamo has been using material offcuts from factories run by her family's Italian shoe-design business since 2019. Today, she has collaborations with Sotheby’s and Elisabetta Cipriai Gallery under her belt, and tours the globe exhibiting her jewels at art fairs including Art Basel and Miart, Milan. As her designs become ever more ambitious, it's obvious that the more she explores leather as a jewel material, Maria Sole Ferragmo's design vision only gets stronger.
