Alice Waese is not your typical fine jewellery designer. Despite founding an eponymous cult jewellery line that ranges in price from £1,900 to £6,500 – she has received critical acclaim from numerous fashion magazines including Vogue and Interview and exhibited her work at Frieze London 2015 – Alice’s propulsion of fine jewellery leaves it’s mark by revelling in the subversion and whim of all-that-glitters-isn’t gold cocktail sparkle. Her unisex gold and silver pieces, which are hand crafted in limited editions of 90, are subjects of her diverse research stimuli: birds, trees, roots, skulls, rock formations and limbs.

“The glowing and vivid palette os my Spring Summer 2016 collection is based on a series of paintings I created, they explore the visual intensity and subsequent symbolism of various stones. Alchemists consider the emerald as a symbol of hope, wisdom and as a preservation of love. The ruby is believed to be the most powerful jewel, and is associated with passion, vitality and courage—I incorporate them all in this collection,” she said.

At 20, Alice Waese moved to New York, her current base, to intern for the jeweller Maria Cornejo and was later hired as a design assistant there. She then moved to London where she studied Fine Art at Goldsmith’s College before turning to jewellery full time. Alice describes her interest in fine jewellery as in fact a fascination with “artifacts and heirlooms, the weight of an object with intrinsic value. I consider what happens to an item that is loved, given away, passed on and worn daily. I am inspired also by the materials themselves, the transformation from wax to gold is something really satisfying both on an aesthetic level and a tactile, physical level. I also work from my drawings, an internal world of fantasy and narrative”.

Drawing from life is the basis of Alice’s work, as she truly believes that knowing the dimensions and details of objects and space are key to later constructing something fine and precious out of that which was once mundane. In conjunction with research of the fine jewellery field, Alice eagerly sketches and has published her surrealist watercolour drawings in a series of hand printed hardbound books, each containing a single piece of jewellery hidden in the cutout.

For Spring Summer 2016, Alice Waese’s launches a fine jewellery and ready-to-wear collection that is available exclusively at Hostem.

Alicewaese.com // Hostem.co.uk

Tags: Alice Waese, fine jewellery, Hostem