Bright New Gems 2024 Winners Revealed

09 Oct 2024

Image: Kiah Bibby's Manhattan Project: Recycled Plastic, Gold Plate with Cubic Zirconia

Bright New Gems, the renowned industry mentoring platform that promotes the best in new talent, announces the successful six MA and BA graduate winners for 2024.

49 applications were received this year from eight UK universities and colleges - Birmingham City University, Central Saint Martins, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD), Edinburgh College of Art, Royal College of Art, Glasgow School of Art, Truro College of Art  & Design and the University of the Creative Arts.

The entries were judged across two categories – Responsible Thinking, Sustainable Eco Heroes and Show Off, Statement Pieces

Responsible Thinking - Sustainable Eco-Heroes

Designs and/or finished pieces made with responsibly sourced or sustainable materials to reflect the growing demand and interest in sustainability.  These pieces should demonstrate potential commercial viability. 

Joey Zhong

BA Central Saint Martins

@joeyzhongjewellery

 Emerging fine and high jewellery designer Joey Zhong sees jewellery as a form of storytelling. Her designs and process brings together an admiration of jewellery craftsmanship tradition and artistry with contemporary design principles and thinking. Her collection, ‘Here and There, Then and Now’, tells a personal narrative of diaspora following her family’s journey of migration where gemstones represent seeds that have been scattered and dispersed. She experiments with weaving and wrapping methods that hold gemstones. She uses donated opal offcuts chosen and collected by her parents from her home city of Sydney. She hand carves these gems to make precious a conventionally neglected material. As offcuts, fractures run throughout the stones. When carved and polished, they resemble relics from the past; seeds that are held and carried.

Woven Opal Cuff: Hand-carved orange opal offcut, gilding metal, copper

Kiah Bibby

BA Central Saint Martins

@ladymisskiah

Kiah’s designs reflect her love for pop culture and bold aesthetics, combining classic jewellery elements with contemporary materials. She draws inspiration from films, TV shows, and nostalgic memories to create pieces that tell a story. Her process is playful yet thoughtful, always rooted in deeper meaning. For her graduate collection, “There’s No Place Like Mode,” she was inspired by Ugly Betty, incorporating its sets and characters into her designs. She creates for those who appreciate jewellery with a personal touch and a deeper connection.

Makila Nsika Nkaya  

MA Central Saint Martins

@m.kala_jewellery

Makila Nsika is a London based designer dedicated to enhancing the skills of her community in Congo while building a long-term, globally aligned jewellery vision.

Her love for literature, studied at Sorbonne University, informs her practice: she thinks carefully about the analogies between the components she is working with, their social and environmental context. Her final work for the MA Design at Central Saint Martins was twice awarded (Maison/0 green trail and Graduate Award)

Show Off - Statement Pieces

Designs and /or finished pieces showing creative flair with innovative use of materials and which demonstrate potential commercial viability

Estelle Burton

MA Central Saint Martins

@estellemburton

Estelle Burton is a contemporary jewellery designer and metalsmith with a fascination for glass.
Having recently completed a research-based Design Masers at Central Saint Martins, she spends her time working on location in the factory space in collaboration with teams of scientists, engineers and highly skilled scientific glass workers. Using a unique blend of industrial and traditional jewellery processes, Estelle brings together different disciplines to breathe new life into salvaged optics and novel materials. Subverting processes to create opportunities for collaboration and question ideas of value where new forms and structures are made possible using super-strong 'technical' glasses to maximise play with light, colour and shadow on the skin of the wearer.

The unique materials used suggest scope to transform the way metals and glasses may be joined together to transform the concept of 'settings' in jewellery and the way glass may be worn on the body.
Each of these pieces showcase the art of the possible through cross sector design collaborations and demonstrate the array of glass waste and archived tooling available to allow production of this collection to be scaled.

Jiatong (Tina) Jiao

BA Central Saint Martins

@jiaosjewels 

Tina Jiao is a jewellery designer, specializing in traditional jade carving techniques such as Devil's work ball and Chain carving. Her work reimagines jade jewellery by blending heritage craftsmanship with contemporary design. Exhibited internationally at Gallery Marzee and featured in Current Obsession magazine, Tina’s creations explore themes of multiculturalism, movement, and individuality, offering a modern take on centuries-old techniques. Through her work, she bridges the past and present, creating unique pieces that communicate her cultural identity.

Torquil Gordon

BA Glasgow School of Art

@torquilgordonjewellery

Torquil Gordon's collection ‘Lands of Bent Grass’, draws inspiration from the island landscapes of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, aiming to capture their unique character through jewellery. The collections inspiration was gathered through solo ‘wild’ camping trips into the Outer Hebrides capturing the fierce weather and dramatic landscape through film. Translated into metal, each meticulously crafted piece serves as a wearable memento to the landscape that inspires it.

Overgrowing Rings: sterling silver

Now in its nineteenth year, the Bright New Gems programme has enabled eighty-five BNG designers to showcase their work to the industry, retailers and opinion formers.  Many BNG winners have gone on to carve out very successful award-winning careers.

The judging panel is made up of influential industry and consumer editors and experts in the sector – all of whom bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the panel.

• Tomasz Donocik, award winning designer and 2006 Bright New Gem.  
• Maria Doulton, Editor-in-chief/Co-founder of The Jewellery Editor
• Sonya Mowll, Partner & Category Lead Jewellery & Watches John Lewis
• Liz Olver MA RCA, Independent Jewellery Consultant
• Susi Smither, jewellery designer and responsible and sustainable industry expert (Founder of both The Rock Hound, East London’s Gemmologist Jeweller and Fair Luxury collective)

Judge Susi Smither commented,

"This year's graduates really raised the bar with impressive skills and an eye for unique detail making it a tough round of judging. I'm delighted that our 6 winning Bright New Gems will be rewarded with a brand-new programme of mentoring ahead of showcasing at The Jewellery Festival in March 2025, giving this talented bunch an extra boost and getting their name out there."
 
The support from the industry is invaluable and includes the National Association of Jewellers for their dedicated mentoring, the Benevolent Society for donating a special Bursary of £400 to help towards each of the winners travel and accommodation costs, Retail Jeweller for providing support and exhibition space at the UK Jewellery Festival in March 2025 and to Jewel Ads for their ongoing online support, including showcasing the winners and their work in the lead-up to the 2025 Jewellery Festival.

Source: Bright New Gems