Golden youths: Hip young jewellery designers
A new wave of hip, young jewellery designers is transforming the industry with its ideas. Harriet Walker finds out who's bringing our bling bang up to date
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Your support makes all the difference.Dominic Jones, 25
Cybergoth glamour
Where do you find your inspiration?
I have always had an interest in natural forms and shapes. Lately, I have been looking more towards art deco, structural and sculptural references and have been exploring my abilities to carve and work in more three-dimensional ways.
Describe your aesthetic.
Elegant and chic but with a tough, slightly aggressive edge to it.
Who wears your pieces?
I find that I have a very wide customer base. I like that so many different types of people relate to and wear my work. My largest stockist is Net-a-Porter.com. I think that the way they work has helped open up who is able to enjoy fashion, not limiting it to only those able to make it to the high-end shops in the capital.
What's your background?
I studied a BA in contemporary jewellery design at the Sir John Cass school of art and design.
Zoe & Morgan, Thirties
3 siblings; 2 designers (Zoe and Morgan); 1 head for business
Where do you find your inspiration?
From so many different places: ancient cultures mixed with modern day street culture. It's all about mixing things up and creating something that has real meaning, both for us and for the person who wears it.
Describe your aesthetic.
We like to mix the rough and the smooth, the beautiful and the menacing. We both like a balance between these elements; our collections always try to mix elements, so whether skulls and flowers, or solid and negative space, we try to create contrast.
Who wears your pieces?
Someone who loves it as much as we do.
What's your background?
Our father was a jeweller, so it was always part of our lives. It was a natural curiosity as children that has still not stopped. We experimented with garments but decided jewellery suited us because it was less disposable.
Pamela Love, 29
New York grunge in collaboration with Topshop
Where do you find your inspiration?
From travelling around the country, particularly the south-west United States. I love Native American and Mexican design.
Describe your aesthetic.
A mix of masculine and feminine. I think a lot of people assume I am a goth, but I actually really love florals.
Who wears your pieces?
Someone who appreciates design, detail and is looking for something that they can wear for the rest of their lives.
What's your background?
I studied film at NYU and spent a while working with [the painter] Francesco Clemente. I was also doing a lot of styling, which is how I started to get more involved in creating my own jewellery.
Pamela Love for Topshop launches on 19 May
Maria Francesca Pepe, 32
Avant-garde trash couture
Where do you find your inspiration?
It's a need, more than a search. Romanticism and gothicism; the early 1900s aesthetic; silent and vintage movies; "femmes fatales"; as well as the punk and trash culture in the Eighties and Nineties.
Describe your aesthetic.
Bold, avant-garde, sexy, cool, classic.
Who wears your pieces?
Young fashion-aware customers with tighter budgets, as well as a mature, luxury-focused clientele who appreciate the high quality of Italian manufacturing.
What's your background?
I studied literature and philosophy before my Fashion BA at the Marangoni Institute. After some freelance work in Milan, I moved to London to complete my MA in Womenswear at Central Saint Martins.
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