But surprisingly enough, jewelry design didn’t come naturally for Zwart. “It was an unexpected passion that caught me off-guard,” she shared in an interview with Vogue. “I had moved to Guatemala to work for a fair-trade accessories non-profit that worked with local artisans to create jewelry & home goods. There was a lot of metal working going on there, and Guatemala has a lot of natural stones that I was drawn to.”

It was there on the shores of Lake Atitlan that she began to study the art of jewelry metal working and was immediately enamored with the notion of being able to sculpt pieces from the ground up that can be worn every day. “After a series of events I started studying metal working on the weekends to make jewelry and fell head over heels in love with it,” she notes. “It was all I thought about from then on.”

Zwart’s design aesthetic is characterized by her fresh perspective and restrained approach. Her pieces feel modern and interesting, yet effortlessly wearable, with influences that include the French Art Deco era as well as her fascination with ancient civilizations. “It is fascinating to me when I walk into a museum and see gold coins, necklaces, earrings and bracelets from thousands of years ago and know that they meant so much to someone,” she says. “As a status symbol, as something they treasured personally, as something that was passed down from generation to generation. This is what inspired me to go into fine jewelry. The allure of creating something that lasts.”

The post This Jewelry Brand Is Worn By Your Favorite Celebrities appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

“I’ve been fortunate that I’ve only been asked to work on projects I’m actually interested in,” she told Metal Magazine, when asked about some of her collaborative work. “I think it can happen that you get a job that’s very prescribed, and not something you really want to do, but you do it anyway and that’s got to be a tough way to work. But I think art directors are trying to choose artists who they can tell will be right for the job and that includes being interested. So all of my jobs have been pretty good to me, nice problems to solve.”

With her jewelry work, she combines both her passion for illustration and metalwork, turning her drawings and ideas into unique pieces of jewelry. All pieces start out as models hand carved in wax, which are then cast and finished individually by hand in her studios (based in London and New York). The work is intended to show signs of being handmade, nothing too clean or too perfect, with the process being part of the finished product.

“Making jewelry started as very much an experiment, a hobby,” Blegvad admits. “A friend showed me how to work with casting wax, and as soon as I got my first pieces back I was hooked. It is still so cool to make something and have it transformed into metal. I never get bored of that.”

“I’ve always been interested in meaning being attributed to objects, to wearing things that have some sort of power or story behind them,” she adds. “I’m just lucky that other people seem to want to wear them too.”

Take a look at some of her unique products in the gallery below.

The post Kaye Blegvad Turns Her Illustrations Into Unique Pieces of Jewelry appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

Structural in nature, Álvarez’s pieces have been shown at galleries, stores, and international museums such as the Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Luxembourg or the Reina Sofía in Madrid, amongst others. They’re also sold in more than 20 countries over five continents.

With a background in fashion and graphic design, Julieta Álvarez says she fell in love with ceramics after taking a course with Resu Labrador. “I’m in love with ceramic because is a material that allows almost everything,” she shared with Cup of Couple. “You can experiment with it, try new things, learn, make jewelry, sculptures or just disconnect from the world and lose track of time.”

She recalls being mesmerized with ceramics when she was just a child. “When I was a kid I played a bit with ceramic, my dad is pretty good molding and he used to bring pottery lumps home.”

Her designs nowadays rely on shapes and dramatic contrasts. “I’m so interested in contrasts,” she says. “When you look at nature you can find geometric shapes, symmetries and repeated patterns following a mathematical behavior, but at the same time, you find chaos, disorder, poetry, and shapes without any coherence.”

Such “organized chaos” is to be expected when scrolling through the sisters’ collections.

The post The Handmade Ceramic Jewelry of Julieta Álvarez appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

“As of right now, everything is made in NYC, and the majority of our stuff is cast from recycled metals,” they added in an interview with Buzzwork. “However, we acknowledge that there will always be countless ways to improve, especially as the business grows, and we strive to learn more every day. Whether you’re an individual or a business, climate change is destroying the earth and our work is never done when it comes to sustainability!”

According to the two designers, every component is sourced in the United States and assembled locally, with none of their production taking place somewhere they can’t see with their own eyes. And while gold and silver are the lifeblood of their product, they’re also notorious for dumping environmental waste into the earth; so the two found a caster in New York that primarily uses 100% recycled metals. “Some of their materials are sourced from a metal supplier that actively limits their energy, water, and production of toxic waste,” they note on their website. 

But while their brand preaches sustainability, their products themselves promote a light-hearted approach. “Avoiding ‘preachiness’ is a huge priority for us, so humor definitely plays a role in the way we communicate our values,” Shatz and Scudder note. Designing everything with a sense of humor and playfulness in mind, their jewelry collections tend to be on the quirky, nostalgic side.

Sounds good to us.

The post Sustainability + Humor = Jewelry Brand Garbage appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

But when it boils down to launching a collection, it all begins with her sketchbook. “I draw all the ideas that come to my mind,” said Castel, explaining her creative process in an interview with Arcana Magazine. She adds that inspiration comes easily while traveling around the globe. “When I like the shapes and random ideas I have got, I decide some viable pieces and I make samples in metal,” she adds. “After making, repeating and trying I put them all together to see how the family looks.”

Usually, she ends up choosing the roughest and most unpredictable shapes, explaining that those are often more attractive and tend to capture those elusive feelings that you can’t explain with words. Based in Barcelona, all of her pieces are handmade and hand-sculpted at her studio. She explains that her pieces are designed and made with care, using good quality materials, such as gold, silver, and raw crystals or gemstones. She also makes sure to recycle metals as much as possible, in order to produce less waste.

Having studied art and product design, she makes sure to travels as much as she can, admitting that she enjoys being constantly on the move, experiencing new cultures, and meeting new people. With an optimistic perspective, Castel says she tends to admire beauty in all of its forms. Take a look at some of her meaningful designs in the gallery below.

The post Rough, Unpredictable, and Beautiful: Naida C. Castel’s Jewelry appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

“There is so much available on the market but many collections feel impersonal and replaceable when in fact, jewelry is actually a very personal piece since you wear so close to the body,” they say. “There’s much more to it than just looking good. That’s the reason we were inspired to tell our own stories through our jewelry line.”

Now their brand WALD is celebrated for its unique designs, amassing more than 40k fans on Instagram alone. After a successful first collection, launched in January 2018 WALD Berlin quickly became the jewelry brand to know. Their latest collection, Paris Addis Abeba, is inspired by 90s nostalgia; trips to the beach—a notion to traveling inspirations—from adventures to wanderlust. As such, it incorporates things like green shells, coral, and jasper stones, taking the classic shell trend in a progressive and exciting direction.”We just design what we love and what we want to wear,” they explain. “It is such a dream to see that people really respond to your vision of aesthetics and actually wear it.”

All jewelry is handmade in Germany, hiring a collective of women who would otherwise be unemployed to make the pieces. The environment is also extremely important to WALD, and they make sure that the shells and coral they use are not on the protected species list.

The post Rock Your Pearls Like You Mean it With WALD Berlin appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

“For me, jewelry that in one way or another connects with the human body is more than just ordinary jewelry,” Shinzato relayed in an interview with Cotonoha. “You can touch it and enjoy it as conceptual art, or you can wear it as you would an ordinary piece of jewelry. This kind of jewelry is not merely placed on the body, but rather, becomes one with its wearer. Its conceptual jewelry. Its contemporary jewelry.”

In one of her series, for example, jewelry pieces are made to serve as ironic “self-confidence boosters” that hold your chin in place. “I usually begin with a concept, then create the design, and finally select the materials,” she said, talking about her creative process. “While in school, I realized that I didn’t need to limit myself to a particular type of material. I wanted to broaden my horizons.”

Her manipulation and modifications are food for thought in an age that’s obsessed with Instagramable beauty.

The post Akiko Shinzato’s Jewelry Will Make You Question Your Ideas About Beauty appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

But surprisingly enough, jewelry design didn’t come naturally for Zwart. “It was an unexpected passion that caught me off-guard,” she shared in an interview with Vogue. “I had moved to Guatemala to work for a fair-trade accessories non-profit that worked with local artisans to create jewelry & home goods. There was a lot of metal working going on there, and Guatemala has a lot of natural stones that I was drawn to.”

It was there on the shores of Lake Atitlan that she began to study the art of jewelry metal working and was immediately enamored with the notion of being able to sculpt pieces from the ground up that can be worn every day. “After a series of events I started studying metal working on the weekends to make jewelry and fell head over heels in love with it,” she notes. “It was all I thought about from then on.”

Zwart’s design aesthetic is characterized by her fresh perspective and restrained approach. Her pieces feel modern and interesting, yet effortlessly wearable, with influences that include the French Art Deco era as well as her fascination with ancient civilizations. “It is fascinating to me when I walk into a museum and see gold coins, necklaces, earrings and bracelets from thousands of years ago and know that they meant so much to someone,” she says. “As a status symbol, as something they treasured personally, as something that was passed down from generation to generation. This is what inspired me to go into fine jewelry. The allure of creating something that lasts.”

The post This Jewelry Brand Is Worn By Your Favorite Celebrities appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

“I’ve been fortunate that I’ve only been asked to work on projects I’m actually interested in,” she told Metal Magazine, when asked about some of her collaborative work. “I think it can happen that you get a job that’s very prescribed, and not something you really want to do, but you do it anyway and that’s got to be a tough way to work. But I think art directors are trying to choose artists who they can tell will be right for the job and that includes being interested. So all of my jobs have been pretty good to me, nice problems to solve.”

With her jewelry work, she combines both her passion for illustration and metalwork, turning her drawings and ideas into unique pieces of jewelry. All pieces start out as models hand carved in wax, which are then cast and finished individually by hand in her studios (based in London and New York). The work is intended to show signs of being handmade, nothing too clean or too perfect, with the process being part of the finished product.

“Making jewelry started as very much an experiment, a hobby,” Blegvad admits. “A friend showed me how to work with casting wax, and as soon as I got my first pieces back I was hooked. It is still so cool to make something and have it transformed into metal. I never get bored of that.”

“I’ve always been interested in meaning being attributed to objects, to wearing things that have some sort of power or story behind them,” she adds. “I’m just lucky that other people seem to want to wear them too.”

Take a look at some of her unique products in the gallery below.

The post Kaye Blegvad Turns Her Illustrations Into Unique Pieces of Jewelry appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

Structural in nature, Álvarez’s pieces have been shown at galleries, stores, and international museums such as the Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Luxembourg or the Reina Sofía in Madrid, amongst others. They’re also sold in more than 20 countries over five continents.

With a background in fashion and graphic design, Julieta Álvarez says she fell in love with ceramics after taking a course with Resu Labrador. “I’m in love with ceramic because is a material that allows almost everything,” she shared with Cup of Couple. “You can experiment with it, try new things, learn, make jewelry, sculptures or just disconnect from the world and lose track of time.”

She recalls being mesmerized with ceramics when she was just a child. “When I was a kid I played a bit with ceramic, my dad is pretty good molding and he used to bring pottery lumps home.”

Her designs nowadays rely on shapes and dramatic contrasts. “I’m so interested in contrasts,” she says. “When you look at nature you can find geometric shapes, symmetries and repeated patterns following a mathematical behavior, but at the same time, you find chaos, disorder, poetry, and shapes without any coherence.”

Such “organized chaos” is to be expected when scrolling through the sisters’ collections.

The post The Handmade Ceramic Jewelry of Julieta Álvarez appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

“As of right now, everything is made in NYC, and the majority of our stuff is cast from recycled metals,” they added in an interview with Buzzwork. “However, we acknowledge that there will always be countless ways to improve, especially as the business grows, and we strive to learn more every day. Whether you’re an individual or a business, climate change is destroying the earth and our work is never done when it comes to sustainability!”

According to the two designers, every component is sourced in the United States and assembled locally, with none of their production taking place somewhere they can’t see with their own eyes. And while gold and silver are the lifeblood of their product, they’re also notorious for dumping environmental waste into the earth; so the two found a caster in New York that primarily uses 100% recycled metals. “Some of their materials are sourced from a metal supplier that actively limits their energy, water, and production of toxic waste,” they note on their website. 

But while their brand preaches sustainability, their products themselves promote a light-hearted approach. “Avoiding ‘preachiness’ is a huge priority for us, so humor definitely plays a role in the way we communicate our values,” Shatz and Scudder note. Designing everything with a sense of humor and playfulness in mind, their jewelry collections tend to be on the quirky, nostalgic side.

Sounds good to us.

The post Sustainability + Humor = Jewelry Brand Garbage appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

But when it boils down to launching a collection, it all begins with her sketchbook. “I draw all the ideas that come to my mind,” said Castel, explaining her creative process in an interview with Arcana Magazine. She adds that inspiration comes easily while traveling around the globe. “When I like the shapes and random ideas I have got, I decide some viable pieces and I make samples in metal,” she adds. “After making, repeating and trying I put them all together to see how the family looks.”

Usually, she ends up choosing the roughest and most unpredictable shapes, explaining that those are often more attractive and tend to capture those elusive feelings that you can’t explain with words. Based in Barcelona, all of her pieces are handmade and hand-sculpted at her studio. She explains that her pieces are designed and made with care, using good quality materials, such as gold, silver, and raw crystals or gemstones. She also makes sure to recycle metals as much as possible, in order to produce less waste.

Having studied art and product design, she makes sure to travels as much as she can, admitting that she enjoys being constantly on the move, experiencing new cultures, and meeting new people. With an optimistic perspective, Castel says she tends to admire beauty in all of its forms. Take a look at some of her meaningful designs in the gallery below.

The post Rough, Unpredictable, and Beautiful: Naida C. Castel’s Jewelry appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

“There is so much available on the market but many collections feel impersonal and replaceable when in fact, jewelry is actually a very personal piece since you wear so close to the body,” they say. “There’s much more to it than just looking good. That’s the reason we were inspired to tell our own stories through our jewelry line.”

Now their brand WALD is celebrated for its unique designs, amassing more than 40k fans on Instagram alone. After a successful first collection, launched in January 2018 WALD Berlin quickly became the jewelry brand to know. Their latest collection, Paris Addis Abeba, is inspired by 90s nostalgia; trips to the beach—a notion to traveling inspirations—from adventures to wanderlust. As such, it incorporates things like green shells, coral, and jasper stones, taking the classic shell trend in a progressive and exciting direction.”We just design what we love and what we want to wear,” they explain. “It is such a dream to see that people really respond to your vision of aesthetics and actually wear it.”

All jewelry is handmade in Germany, hiring a collective of women who would otherwise be unemployed to make the pieces. The environment is also extremely important to WALD, and they make sure that the shells and coral they use are not on the protected species list.

The post Rock Your Pearls Like You Mean it With WALD Berlin appeared first on Wallpaper Data.

“For me, jewelry that in one way or another connects with the human body is more than just ordinary jewelry,” Shinzato relayed in an interview with Cotonoha. “You can touch it and enjoy it as conceptual art, or you can wear it as you would an ordinary piece of jewelry. This kind of jewelry is not merely placed on the body, but rather, becomes one with its wearer. Its conceptual jewelry. Its contemporary jewelry.”

In one of her series, for example, jewelry pieces are made to serve as ironic “self-confidence boosters” that hold your chin in place. “I usually begin with a concept, then create the design, and finally select the materials,” she said, talking about her creative process. “While in school, I realized that I didn’t need to limit myself to a particular type of material. I wanted to broaden my horizons.”

Her manipulation and modifications are food for thought in an age that’s obsessed with Instagramable beauty.

The post Akiko Shinzato’s Jewelry Will Make You Question Your Ideas About Beauty appeared first on Wallpaper Data.