CINDY CHAO

With the majestic backdrop of Snow Mountain, Taiwan's beautiful Fushan Botanical Garden is a virtual wonder of natural beauty. The picturesque grounds house more than 6, 000 plants and is known as the largest botanical garden in Asia. Taiwan is also home to featured jewelry designer Cindy Chao.

The creation process is an aspect of jewelry design and making that is as fascinating as a designer's creative process.

Personally, I see the two as separate, one involving the conceptual groundwork, and the other the actual construction.

For me, learning about techniques like filigree, wire wrapping, enameling, repoussé and chasing, and granulation re-emphasizes the technical skill and precision required to cultivate jewelry pieces of remarkable complexity and beauty.

Chao's stunning jewelry collections reflect intricate, detailed artisanship rendered through painstaking and time-consuming work.

The graduate of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), and certified gemologist, Chao creates magnificent pieces of staggering opulence that are reminiscent of Bao Bao Wan (China).

"There was a point in 2007 when I went through a rough patch in my jewelry-making career," she says. "Initially, my work was conservative, traditional pieces, but I knew I would not be able to thrive much longer in the market if I continued doing that type of jewelry."

Inspired by Asian art and architecture, Chao's bold yet elegant design contours are fashioned from 18-karat yellow, white and oxidized gold, golden, and white pearls, diamonds, rubies, and sapphires.

Her Mysteries of the East collection highlight beautiful, bold colored gemstones within streamlined proportions, while the Paradise collection features a stunning ring holding a spectacular blue stone in a talon-like setting that is offset by a twined shank of 18-karat white and yellow gold.

It is understandable that the exquisite items from her Four Seasons collection helped to solidify Chao's standing as a highly skilled jewelry artist, as the collection features masterfully detailed nature-inspired jewelry pieces.

As the name suggests, the Four Seasons collection is built around spring, summer, fall, and winter. In one instance, the arrangement of the diamonds in a ring representing winter is like a cascading droop of heavy icicles. In another item, the semblance of outreached branches is studded with an icy patch of diamonds.

The Majestic Beauty Fan, an exclusive design for DeBeers' Forevermark Precious Collection, is an incredible piece featuring a removable, 18-karat yellow, white, and rose gold butterfly brooch.

Creating the mold alone for this piece took a month while 2,339 diamonds were carefully placed in pavé settings throughout the piece's entwined branches.

It took Chao and her artisan team four months to complete the final piece. This magnificent item, along with the whole of Chao's collections, is a masterpiece of the utmost precision required in hand fabricated jewelry.
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Photo 1 (top right): 18-Karat Yellow and White Gold Brooch with Jadelite and Ruby
Photo 2 (bottom left): 18-Karat Gold Majestic Beauty Fan with Diamonds and Removable Butterfly Brooch

ANOUSH WADDINGTON

The 14th century structure Bodiam Castle located in East Sussex, England was built by the order of a knight of Edward II and was once a garrison for soldiers. However, the fortress was not built to sustain a heavy attack. England is also home to featured jewelry designer Anoush Waddington.

According to my research, the first known synthetic plastic, called Parkesine, was invented in 1855 by Englishman Alexander Parkes as a substitute for ivory.

Fifty-four years later while looking for a coating to cover electrical metal wires, Leo Hendrik Baekeland blended phenol and formaldehyde creating what became known as Bakelite.

Throughout the years a variety of plastics from polystyrene and polyester to polyurethanes have been used to create all manner of everyday items such as food containers, vending cups, shower curtains, and compact discs.

In the years to follow Baekeland's invention, Bakelite, would become a popular material for use in jewelry making; so popular in fact, that today authentic Bakelite jewelry is a lucrative commodity.

Jewelry designers from around the globe, including Sue Gregor (England), Yoko Izawa (Japan), Rachel McKnight (Ireland), Tarina Tarantino (USA) and Ceren Keyman (Turkey) use plastics like acrylic, Lucite, and polypropylene to create jewelry of incredible detail and beauty.

Waddington's exposure to great music and theatre, courtesy of parents steeped in the respective industries, served to cultivate a very open-minded approach to jewelry design and personal style.

Her daring style aesthetic and innovative use of non-traditional materials like polypropylene, however, pushed the limits of tolerance at her alma mater of Bucks New Uni (formerly Buckinghamshire Chilterns).

The ominous clash of wills did not deter the ambitious designer as she graduated with honors in Design, Metalwork, and Jewelry in 2000.

Her work in the fashion and film industries, working respectively as a runway model and animator, sharpened her sense for color combinations and blending eclectic forms.

Through her company Metalix, Waddington created the first polypropylene jewelry designs. The plastic was known for its difficulty to manipulate but she persevered continually working with the material until she successfully mastered its malleable properties.

The creations are highly imaginative and theatrical in their configurations. She appears to cut very thin strips of dyed plastic without cutting the strips away from the larger piece allowing the strips to hang down building a design within the cascading strips.

The ranges of pieces include brightly colored, feather-like items to semblances of billowy jellyfish tentacles and glowing sea anemones to items akin to armor and dominatrix garb. It is fascinating that someone can take an item like plastic and use it to create other items so removed from contexts we commonly associate with it.

Waddington's work certainly helps to open up the observer's imagination to see new functions for a material not regularly used for decorative purposes. If anything, her work certainly opens up an observer to the designer's incredible artistry and attention to detail.

Waddington has garnered numerous awards for her extraordinary work including the 2006 Gane Trust Award, and the 2001 Crafts Council Setting Award.

"My work sums up a personal journey comprising traditional values applied to contemporary materials. I value a freedom to combine materials where form, line, color, and movement should merge with fluidity."


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Photo 1 (top right): Orange Polypropylene Neckpiece
Photo 2 (bottom left): Purple Polypropylene Neckpiece

RUTH BARZEL JEWELRY DESIGN

Touted as a conservatory of American history, we eagerly visit Washington D.C.'s National Museum of American History, which boasts intriguing political, scientific, and cultural exhibits including a display featuring the renowned ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. Washington D.C. is also the home of featured jewelry designer Ruth Barzel.

LORENZ BAUMER

Situated along the shoreline of France's Rhone River is the foreboding Tarascon Castle that was constructed during the 15th century by the order of Louis II of Anjou.

After years of disrepair the structure underwent a restoration 78 years ago remaining a historical fixture within the Rhone Valley. France is also the home of featured jewelry designer Lorenz Bäumer.

IRADJ MOINI

One of the most significant and impressive structures in Iran is the Falak-ol-Aflak Castle.

At over 1,000 years old, the fortress sits atop a hill alongside the Khoramabad River and is equipped with a natural dehumidifier system. Iran is also the home of featured jewelry designer Iradj Moini.