Look Book

30 www.thejewelrybook.com Her fashion work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, Museum of the City of New York, the Racine Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and other museums. But as her company grew over two decades, she missed creating with her hands. She took a goldsmithing class to make some pieces for herself. That's when she fell in love with gold. "Gold never disappears: the gold I am wearing could be thousands of years old," she says. She decided to stop designing high-volume fashion jewelry and begin again as a hands-on studio artist, creating one-of- a-kind 22k gold jewelry in the workshop. "When sculpting with the torch I feel that the gold and I are working together to bring my vision of beauty to light," she says. "When I work with the gold, I'm always looking for the happy accident, the movement that the metal naturally makes that I can incorporate into the fi nal design. Crafting each design with my own hands gives it a human touch that can't be replicated any other way." Her jewelry is modern in form but inspired by history, myth and mythology. She designs expressive armor that empowers the women who wear it. Like fragments of an ancient Byzantine mosaic, rough aquamarine beads are framed in gleaming 22k gold. A bracelet of baroque pearls blooms with a clasp bouquet of multicolored gold and diamonds. Oak leaf earrings evoke an ancient Macedonian crown. Inspired by the ancient sorceress Circe, a bold necklace of amethysts embraced by circles of 22k gold casts a magical spell on everyone who sees it. Although her dramatically scaled pieces are regarded as art, they are also surprisingly easy to wear, thanks to her under- standing of how the body moves. "Although my pieces are bold, they settle in on the body as though they were always meant to be there," she says. "Although my pieces are bold, they settle in on the body as though they were always meant to be there.'' Designer Profile Byzantium Necklace Circes Circle Necklace

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