Inspired Design

Recently someone asked me what my favourite part the book-writing process was. Easy. It was learning what inspired each jeweller to be creative.

Receiving photos of finished pieces was great, but each time one of my* jewellers mailed me drawings of their work in progress, screen grabs of their sketch books or snaps of their moodbards, I’d get excited. Knots-in-the-tummy excited. It was like they’d let me in on a secret.

Having behind-the-scenes access to the creative process from start to finish helped me pinpoint each designer’s trademarks and idiosyncrasies. In turn I was able to write more sensitively about their work, which is important when you're profiling 33 people who essentially have the same job. I only hope they’ll agree when publishing day comes!



David & Martin are really into research and inspiration. Whether it’s the left over bits of a fried chicken meal, a pretty Japanese girl reading Vogue and chowing down on the tube, or the macabre tooth scene from Roman Polanski’s movie, The Tenant, these Swedish jewellers have a darkly humorous approach to design.

This is a mock up of the piece they made for the Colette exhibition

The skull in the finished piece will be 18k gold



Here's the sketch


Voila l'inspiration







All images courtesy of David and Martin


An abridged version of David's supersweet email
“The piece …. has been really interesting to work on. It made us analyze what we have been, what we are and what we want to be in the future.

Until now we have been working on kind of two different tracks. On one hand, a more futuristic and minimalistic and on the other hand a more ethnic theme with inspiration from nature, bones, animals, voodoo etc.

Our goal have for a long time been to mix this two to make it more unique, and that is what we try to do in this Colette piece!

It have become the start of something new, we call the style FAUNA FUTURA, it will be a mix of futurism and nature. It is a long story but I wanted to tell you because this process started when you invited us for the Colette exhibition so you are kind of a part of it!"


(So poetic – I get to be an inspiration to the people whose inspiration I wrote about!)


Before I overandout, congratulations to David on his new arrival – very likely his greatest creation to date!


*OK, I know they don’t belong to ME (more’s the pity) but peppering these posts with ‘the jewellers I wrote about’ or ‘the jewellers featured in my book’ could get annoying, no?