Colleen Choi

An accountant-turned-artisan's exoskeleton pendants, chunky resin necklaces and other statement-making accessories

Former CPA Colleen Choi left her California home and career, moving cross country to NYC to pursue her dream of designing jewelry. Since graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology, Choi now does just that, coming up with one-off accessories that expertly mix a range of high and low materials and speak to her strength as both a conceptual designer and skilled metalsmith. Choi studied …

Jerusalem Jewelery

A multi-layered gold pendant mapping an ancient city

Debuting at the recent 2010 Designboom Mart at ICFF, Knockoutdesign‘s Jerusalem necklace steeps stainless steel coated in 24K gold with topical meaning. The internationally-strewn design collective created the pendant as a representation of the diverse mix of ethnicity, religions and languages found in Jerusalem’s compact Old City area. Composed of three layers based on the Old City map, the top layer displays the boundaries of …

Glace

Architect Zaha Hadid applies her radical physics to jewelry for Swarovski

In her collaborative collection with Swarovski, architect Zaha Hadid‘s jewelry creations share her larger works’ deconstructionist design aesthetic, as well as the dramatically sculpted contours informed by it. The five-piece Glace collection—consisting of sinuous cuff bracelets, rings and a pendant necklace—infuses the Iraq-born architect’s trademark alien forms with sprays of colored crystals, which Hadid says exotic Birds of Paradise flowers inspired. Swarovski’s guest-designed spring/summer line …