The playful fine jewellery that ‘pops’ on social media

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A wave of fine and demi-fine jewellers are responding to growing demand for more whimsical jewellery, bringing fiery imagination to high-level purchases. Offering pieces with prices ranging from $150 to several hundred thousand dollars, these jewellers are finding favour with youthful, digital-first clients looking for bold aesthetics and expressive styles that pop on mobile devices and social channels.

With his background in classical Greek and Latin studies and chemistry, Marco Panconesi gives his pieces in 18k gold, crystals, semi-precious stones and pearls a molecular, interstellar look. They are worn by, among others, actor Tilda Swinton and singers FKA twigs and Solange Knowles. His first formative encounters with jewellery were in discovering his grandmother’s collection. “She wouldn’t wear any of it — everything was kept in a closet and in boxes,” Panconesi says. “So it was this feeling of sneaking in to discover things in her room, kind of private, almost forbidden — opening boxes and finding geologist treasures.”

The Italian-born, Paris-based designer always had a passion for art, sculpting and painting. He studied fashion design at Polimoda in Florence and worked for a knitwear atelier, handmaking couture for brands such as Salvatore Ferragamo and Chanel. Following a move to Paris, he honed his skills under the eye of Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy, and Alexander Wang and Demna Gvasalia at Balenciaga. Panconesi founded his eponymous jewellery line in 2018, inspired by the plethora of unrealised jewellery designs he made for other brands that would disappear in the six-month development process. He describes his approach to designing jewellery as akin to the art-making he has long practised.

Paris-based print designer and floral artist Ashley Boer, a client of Panconesi since 2019, looks to the label for its high impact and ease of wear. Her 15-piece collection includes the Vacanza necklaces and anklets (from €188, marcopanconesi.com), Serpent hoops (from €279, marcopanconesi.com) and Solar rings (from €281, marcopanconesi.com). “I’m drawn to the contrast of natural jewels and glossy enamels. I have four piercings in my ears, so I like to stack the earrings up, mixing colours and metals.”

Milan-based Bea Bongiasca, who founded her eponymous brand in 2013, developed her aesthetic in her final collection for the Jewellery Design BA she took at London’s Central Saint Martins school of art. Bongiasca’s designs, phytoid yet unearthly, have their roots in the designer’s own adolescent aesthetic, running the gamut of “punk” to “goth” phases, as she describes them. They are inspired by Japanese pop culture, such as manga stickers and posters, Tamagotchis, Kidrobot toys, Sailor Moon figurines and Takashi Murakami drawings that she has been collecting since she was 14. “My [teenage bedroom] literally looked like my shop does,” she says.

The brand began with pieces realised in silver covered in candy-shop enamel colours, which were quickly picked up by the likes of MatchesFashion and Dover Street Market. More recently, Bongiasca has begun introducing her fine jewellery range in 18k with diamonds and precious stones. She is partial to a fancy cut, favouring brown, yellow and salt-and-pepper diamonds. “It’s mainly women buying [my pieces] for themselves because it’s a bolder choice. If it is a boyfriend, husband or partner they’d need to be quite informed,” laughs Bongiasca. She sees her fantastic pieces as a refreshing counterpoint to the classicism that can prevail in fine jewellery.

“In the same way I watch trashy TV or people read comic books, everyone looks for escapism in different places,” she adds. “I wanted to create that within fine jewellery because it’s usually something so traditional and sentimental. I wanted to make something that [gave people] a mood boost.” 

Nadine Ghosn is the Brazilian-American-Lebanese founder of her eight-year-old eponymous jewellery brand. Born in the US and based in London — and other cities she ricochets between for work — the jewellery designer received on-the-job education in Hermès’ fine jewellery department under creative director Pierre Hardy while working at Boston Consulting Group, where she focused on the business of luxury. Her father is the former Renault chair and chief executive Carlos Ghosn, who has been accused of defrauding his former employer (an accusation he and his lawyers have denied).

Ghosn imbues her collections with a playful aesthetic. “My inspiration was taking very ordinary things that we all come across and putting a twist on it, using fine jewellery to elevate the way that we see it,” she explains. “I love to awaken people’s inner children. That kind of playfulness and joy and levity.”

In 2018, a spur-of-the moment entry to a contest to design giveaway Valentine’s Day jewellery for McDonald’s saw Ghosn conceive her now signature Bling Mac design, inspired by the fast-food chain’s Big Mac burger — eight stacked rings studded in orange sapphires, white diamonds and other gemstones between two 18k gold diamond-dotted “buns”. Soon retailers and tastemakers came calling, such as Colette and Le Bon Marché in Paris, while the late Karl Lagerfeld bought one of her $22,280 white and black diamond-encrusted headphone necklaces.

Her other bestsellers include her Low Battery necklace with ruby detail ($1,965, nadineghosn.com), diamond and tsavorite-dotted Burger and Fries cufflinks ($1,750, nadineghosn.com) and an 18k gold Paperclip bracelet ($4,680, nadineghosn.com). The 18k gold Lifecycle bike chain-inspired bracelet Ghosn wears for our interview has more than 260 components, filled in with micro sapphires.

It is the same piece that 29-year-old hotel developer Holly Coulson hasn’t taken off since purchasing it two years ago. “At first glance, they are simply objectively beautiful pieces,” explains Coulson, who now has a collection of nine of Ghosn’s pieces, including the Burger ring. “But once you look at them more closely, you realise just how much she has done with an everyday object.” 

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