When we began designing the fall collection the working theme was the Housewives of Pompeii. Byzantine glass, unusual shapes of Kyanite, Tourmaline, Labradorite, and rough pearls were selected for their ancient patina and desaturated color palette.
These stones flowed seamlessly with the bronze and silver cast elements from our Spring collection. Building upon the aesthetics of everyday ancient adornment we crafted a jewelry story of what that woman might wear if she lived today. My goal is to make jewelry I want to wear, that evidences the hand of the artist and the simple poetry of another time. All jewelry tells a story about the person who wears it and the artist who made it.
Collage is integral to all of my design work. When I was a printmaker I used a technique called Chine Colle adding pieces of Japanese paper to an inked etching plate.
When I was a bookbinder I used collage as a method of decoration on the hand bound books and boxes made by my company Two Women Boxing.
When I designed wallcovering, I layered different transparent patterns on top of each other to create a singular repeating design.
Designing jewelry has been no different. I have a rich assortment of cast and fabricated bronze pieces from previous collections that are a treasure trove of ideas waiting to be combined together to create the next collection.
Julie Cohn
