VS Jewellery School, New Designers Exhibition London 2023

Graduate Exhibition at New Designers 2023 STAND STAND JC52

At the Business Design Centre, Islington

28th June - 1st July

Preview Evening 28th June 5-9pm

Featuring the work of:

Ethan Tily

Naomi Gaynor

Anne Reid

Lili Bunten

Anna Chetwynd

Enrica Concas

Caroline Thariyan

Zaffran Bennett

We are pleased to showcase our graduating diploma students’ work by participating in the prestigious New Designers 2023 exhibition at The Business Design Centre, London. New Designers is where the stars of tomorrow are discovered – a place that both inspires and promotes innovation. We are so proud of the students that will be taking part this year in what will be VS Jewellery School’s fifth appearance at the event. This is a great opportunity for our students to meet industry professionals as well as other graduating students from all over the country and from all creative disciplines. It is a place for making those all important connections as well as the excitement of taking part in what may be our students’ first chance to exhibit their work and receive feedback from their peers and visitors to the show. Previous graduates have benefitted by meeting potential customers, shop owners and gallery proprietors. We have students graduating at diploma level 3 and 4 and we feel honoured to have helped them develop their creative thinking and technical skills at our school where our ethos is very much on nurturing the individual to achieve creative expression alongside traditional jewellery making techniques.

Please take a look inside at the work of the students taking part this year.

Enrica Concas Freya

Freya is a jewellery collection inspired by the norse goddess of Love and dedicated to emotions. Born from the concept of releasing the emotions inside us, this collection wants to underline the importance of their expression in our daily life. Tears have fascinated men since classic times and they have been attributed magical powers being often associated with the concepts of new life, fertility, and purity.

The Face jewellery 'Emotional' takes inspiration by the shape and path of the tears that flow down the face, turning into Amber stones and joined with a chain that embrace face and ears ending on the shoulders with two more Amber teardrops

The hand piece 'Renaissance' represents the self regeneration after bringing certain emotions into consciousness. The tears upside down remind of the shape of wings that embrace the hand and represent the transformation of pain into renaissance and freedom

Naomi Gaynor Faba

The Faba Collection draws inspiration from the humble bean. By hyper-focusing on the shape and form alone, the bean has been reworked, remodelled and recontextualised using a broad range of different techniques and finishes in order to explore its relationship with space and play with the boundaries of its structural properties.

Zaffran Bennett Fragmentary Connection

FRAGMENTARY CONNECTION explores how we discover and define ourselves through our experiences, present culture, heritage and environments. As we form significant connections, amass knowledge and curate our personal surroundings with objects and memories we sequentially create our visual identities.

Accumulating life's fragments aid us to collage and connect details and ideas together building and defining our life stories.

Reflecting on this and drawn to the idea of symbolism in objects and nature, Zaffran has collected bold forms and textures that had their own unique stories. Instinctively unifying these fragments together and using various jewellery techniques to hand make designs that referenced personal and cultural interests. These celestial talisman wish is to inspire the wearer and bring a sense of wonder and self assurance.

With a previous design degree and a career working in fashion and the arts. It has been a natural progression for Zaffran to create jewellery. Taking this time to gain a greater understanding of the processes involved in this medium, whilst developing her new skills has been an invaluable and a personal accomplishment.

Lili Bunten Passiflora

Passiflora is an exploration of the structural peculiarities hidden within a passion fruit. The collection was born through Lili’s desire to take specific details of a subject which are often overlooked or discarded and transform them into jewellery. Organic at its core, Passiflora refrains from depicting the fruit in its entirety, instead choosing to exhibit the intricate textures found within. Lili utilizes the inner shell of the fruit throughout her process, adapting lost wax casting to capture the texture, immortalising it in metal. The pieces emphasize the decorative aspects of the plant, from the undulating crevices of the husk to the twining tendrils which inspired her chains.

Coming from an academic background in Psychology and no prior design experience, this is Lili’s first thrust into the arts. She prefers to work in tandem with her materials, the ideas for a piece rarely beginning as fully formed rings or earrings. Instead, her designs develop through experimentation with particular textures that interest her, keeping the process open and evolving. With each piece, Lili strives to evoke a sense of awe in the wearer, acting as a physical representation of the emotion she feels when discovering these intricate textures for the first time.

Beige Brick ‘tmrw’

Influenced by the retro-futuristic fluid forms of Y2K and emulsified by the DnB soundscapes that built the foundations of our adolescent low-poly worlds.

“tmrw” comes from the nostalgia of a future that never came.

Anna Chetywnd The Aquatic Nemesis Collection

The Aquatic Nemesis Collection explores the cognitive dissonance evoked by potent emotions. Akin to water, we are bound to the undulating waves of joy, sorrow, love, and resilience. The depth and pervasiveness of our internal experience means complete, inescapable submersion.

Somehow, we must learn how to swim.

Caroline Thariyan

For this collection Caroline took inspiration from studying the history of the chatelaine and the association of duty, power, service and decoration with ancient Welsh symbols of Christianity. The word chatelaine derives from a Latin word meaning ‘the keeper of the castle’, ie, the one who holds the keys, inferring a position of power that allows or denies access.

Ancient Welsh priests adorned with, or demanding subservience to, Christian symbols such as the Celtic Cross held such power with respect to the Kingdom of Heaven in the eyes of the Church and it’s subjects.

Anne Reed Alignment

My collection represents the visualisation of internal emotions. It’s about the expression of one’s feelings and their translation into a conceptual art form which can be worn, held or simply admired.

To connect with our feelings crosses the complexities and realms of the physical and psychological essence within ourselves. It is our own bravery to connect with our emotions and to explore and evolve - this allows expression.

The connections and fluidity within the pieces depict the many crossroads, junctions and journeys which affect our everyday lives. The contrast of the rough and smooth surfaces within the pieces serve to highlight the differences during those experiences which give rise to the emotions we feel.