Outstanding Talent Is the Hallmark of Bright Young Gems 2022
22 Sep 2022
The six winners of the Bright Young Gems® 2022 mentoring scheme for graduating and recently graduated jewellery designers have been announced. The talented line-up comprises Rachel Adam, Kathy Chan, Xinyi Chen, Aleyna Badat, Mary Chan and Yanmin Zhao.
Supported this year by high street retailer John Lewis & Partners, as Retail Associate, Fuli Gemstones, the National Association of Jewellers and the Benevolent Society, Bright Young Gems is now in its 17th year and has evolved to become the foremost industry-recognised platform for new talent. With many previous winners going on to carve out very successful award-winning careers, the programme to date has enabled seventy-three BYG® designers to showcase their work to the industry, retailers and opinion formers.
The two judging categories this year were: Responsible Thinking - Sustainable Eco-Heroes’ for designs and/or finished pieces made with responsibly sourced or sustainable materials to reflect the growing demand and interest in sustainability, with pieces demonstrating potential commercial viability and Show Off - Statement Pieces for designs and /or finished pieces showing creative flair with innovative use of materials and demonstrating potential commercial viability. In each category, two BA graduates and one MA graduate have been selected by the prestigious judging panel.
These are the winning Bright Young Gems® 2022:
Responsible Thinking - Sustainable Eco-Heroes
Rachel Adam is a BA graduate from Dundee University, Duncan of Jordanstone, with her unique Ethica Jewellery Signature Collection.
Image: Rachel Adam Recyled Silver and Hoof Necklace N047
Rachel’s designs capture horsemanship and organic patterns; growing up in a rural setting surrounded by equestrian adventures, provided a haven of inspiration and creativity. Sparked by a desire to find new alternative materials for jewellery design, she found that horses and rhinos are from the same family group and so chose to include horse hoof trimmings as an alternative material in her pieces. All the silver she uses is recycled; the hoof material is ethically sourced.
Kathy Chan is a BA designer from Central St Martins, with her innovative Cultured Rice Collection.
Image: Kathy Chan Glutinous Rice Drop Earrings ECo BA
Kathy has a great passion for 3D arts, particularly in hand sculpting and material innovation. Her jewellery is also about preserving and expressing legacies in an unconventional approach by fusing traditional culture into her creative processes. She also loves to take challenges in breaking the conventional perception of everyday material and brings new life to it through jewellery. These pieces, recreated traditional Chinese Jewellery associated with power and prestige, are inspired by the versatility she sees in rice grains, a humble material - a nourishment of rich and poor alike. She explores the concept of preciousness and value, defining her pieces by cultural significance rather than monetary value.
Xinyi Chen is a MA jewellery designer from Central St Martins
Image: Xinyi chen MA Eco winner Data Garden Collection 2
Her ‘Data Garden’ Collection features recycled electronic components, recycled silver - all PVD-coated. Her collection challenges traditional fine jewellery and proposes a transgressive approach to what we value moving forward. Using found objects and recycled metals, ’Artificial Intelligems’, Xinyi’s pieces cross the boundary between ‘physical versus digital’, showing a new way of living in digital awe and pleasure. Xinyi hopes people will return to the earth’s reality from the virtual, rethink what it means to live in this rapidly changing world and reflect upon the essentials of who they are.
Highly Commended: Tabitha Charlton, BA Jewellery Design CSM, Yuxi Ji, MA design CSM, Bella Lee, BA Jewellery Design CSM, Veronika Marsoner, MA Jewellery Design CSM
Show Off - Statement Pieces
Aleyna Badat is a London-based BA jewellery designer from Central St Martins, with her winning Women: Unlaced collection.
Image: Aleyna Badat Lace Brooch with light blue crystals
Aleyna selects historical or traditional objects to reinterpret in a contemporary context. The result is playful jewellery, representative of the joy and freedom that comes from reconstructing something as her own.
Her collection, “Women: Unlaced”, is a reinterpretation of the traditional corset from a jewellery perspective.
Mary Chan is a BA jewellery designer from Central St Martins with her ‘Caught’ you Lying necklace set.
Mary Chan enjoys creating jewellery that evokes social conversations. By adding kinetic movements and jigsaw-like functions, her work simply invites the wearer to fiddle and play with them.
Image: Mary Chan 'Caught You Lying' Necklace Set Mary Chan BA show stopper
This Emoji necklace set - with pave vegetable charms that can be inserted as the nose of the ‘lying’ emoji - practically performs the ‘push and pull’ of modern-day relationships. This ‘plug in’ necklace set discusses the topic of sexual content, lying and the polarity of online dating, with reference to Pinocchio and symbolism of the forbidden fruit. The interactive function of the pendants shows the physical and digital connection of couples today in a playful and light-hearted way.
Yanmin Zhao is a MA graduate from Central St Martins with her striking Taihu Stone Dream Collection
Image: Yanmin Zhao The Taihu Stone Dream Butterfly brooch HR
Inspired by a Chinese Ming Dynasty painting “Autumn Flowers and Butterfly”, this surrealist butterfly brooch in flattened form is carved in shallow relief on the blue Jade. In a trance, the Taihu stone in the painting seems to have been lifted by the clouds and flies out of the painting as a butterfly, with the Taihu Lake stone as its body and the clouds as its glorious clothing. There is a saying in China that “Stones are the bones of mountains”. This piece traces the legend of Penglai Mountain and pays tribute to the Shanshui culture by borrowing a traditional Chinese allusion to the "The Butterfly Dream".
Highly Commended: Valnerina Amati, BA Jewellery Design CSM, Debora Bevilaqua, MA Jewellery and Metal, RCA, Zhuyun Chen, MA Design CSM, and Hwajung Yoo, BA Jewellery Design CSM.
The BYGs® were selected from final BA and MA year students from colleges and universities across the UK, by a panel of press and industry leaders. These included Hilary Alexander OBE (President of the Graduate Foundation who has been involved since the scheme’s inception), Imogen Belfield (award winning jewellery designer who herself started her career as a Bright Young Gem), Elena Bergonzi, Jewellery Buyer for John Lewis & Partners, Jessica Diamond, Watch & Jewellery Director, The Sunday Times Style & The Times LUXX, Maria Doulton, Editor-in-chief/Co-founder of The Jewellery Editor, Joanna Hardy, Independent Fine Jewellery Specialist, and Susi Smither (Founder of both The Rock Hound, East London’s Gemmologist Jeweller, specialising in creating sustainable iconic design-led jewellery and, more recently, Fair Luxury, an independent collective of jewellery industry entrepreneurs with a shared vision for a responsible and sustainable industry).
All the judges were extremely impressed by the standard of entries.
Hilary Alexander OBE, commented,
“Think of emerging jewellery talent and it Is almost impossible not to immediately think of Bright Young Gems®. For nearly two decades, this pioneering platform has championed a new way to identify, mentor and promote the next generation of young stars poised to dazzle the international jewellery market with their innovative creativity and 21st century mindsets. And this year is no exception – a truly remarkable show of talent.”
Jessica Diamond added,
“It’s always amazing to me to see such breadth of talent and creativity in the entries for Bright Young Gems® - so much jewellery these days is an imitation of something else so I was very pleased to see such originality and clear conviction in the jewellers’ ideas and bravo in particular to the final winners.”
Maria Doulton observed,
"The level of creativity and originality was inspiring and seeing such talent proves that the UK really is a design powerhouse that attracts the best students from around the world. The breadth of the jewels on show will no doubt enrich the jewellery landscape in the coming years.”
Elena Bergonzi remarked,
“The future of our industry looks so bright with the abundance of talent presented in each application. I'm incredibly impressed by the standard of work submitted and the creativity and innovation displayed by every entrant. The winning designs not only spark joy but also demonstrate commercial viability, and I’m confident many successful careers will stem from this year’s competition.”
Joanna Hardy agreed,
"I was amazed and inspired by the jewellery designs submitted for this year’s Bright Young Gems competition. The entries were of a very high standard, and it was so exciting to see how many different materials were being explored and used to create jewellery that was sensitive to the environment, dynamic and wearable. The winners have proved that there is a bright future ahead for the world of jewellery design and I will follow their developments with great interest.”
This was supported by Imogen Belfield, herself a former Bright Young Gem® in 2014, who said,
“Wonderful to see even more entries than ever this year, each bursting with creativity and a clear passion for the jewellery industry. It was encouraging to see so many young graduates consciously innovating with an awareness of sustainability and using this as an anchor with which to communicate their design concepts."
Susi Smither summed up the standard of entries saying,
"What a treat to be presented with so much refreshing work and of such a high calibre - it made this year’s judging much tougher. Our graduates have really delved deep and created cohesive presentations of their jewellery with personal resonance and inventive design.”
In addition, the judges nominated sixteen promising designers who they collectively believe are the ‘Ones to Watch’ within the industry. They are:
Responsible Thinking – Sustainable Eco-Heroes: Xinyi Wang (CSM), Martina Kocianová (CSM), Bingming Liu (Birmingham), Lyndsey Douglas (Dundee), Amy Peoples (Dundee), Maggie Wang (CSM), Charlotte Ooi (CSM) and Tatiana Ponizovskaya (CSM)
Show off – Statement Pieces: Shiwangi Periwal (CSM), Dixin Zheng (CSM), Sarah McQuarrie (Glasgow), Liyun Yu (CSM), Christine Safadi (CSM), Zhan Zhan (CSM), Lauren Wilson (CSM) and Hanan Sultan (RCA)
Learn more about Bright Young Gems
Source: Bright Young Gems