It’s amazing to see that jewelry could be made of so many different materials, wood, textile, plastic, soap, rubber, even cheaper materials. Materials are the ways which designers use to express themselve. Also, it gives designers more possibilities to think about design.
Comparing with traditional jewelry, contemporary jewelry maybe not mean wealth or beauty anymore, instead, it means many other things. Designers want to show their individual views about design, fashion, beauty and society and that’s the way they communicate with viewers. Mostly, young designers prefer visual shock than beauty. Just like abstractionism, viewers have to think about the meaning under the visual surface, so contemporary jewelry is more like a piece of art. It’s hard to judge them by the good design standard, mass production or common beauty. Jewelry is more personal, whatever designers’ ideas or customers’ request.
Contemporary jewelry show many inspirations about using different materials in design, not only in jewelry design. Material is an important part of design, ant it always has respect to people’s feeling about product. They give us more space to think of different materials and not always focus on the traditional materials. It means there are more possibilities that maybe we can’t imagine.
In especial, the jewelry which are made of useless materials are more exciting. For example, some irons may be discarded, however the designer could give them new life by dipping them into plaster and print them with bright colour. They are still iron but with softer surface and different qulity feel. Instead of useless iron, they are beautiful and uniqe jewelry.
There are many unkown materials and unused resource. As designers, we may try more new things and methods to find more possibilities. Manifold materials make design more interesting.
Reference list
Design-Ma-Ma(2011) Contemporary Jewelry Art. UK: CYPI PRESS