New Bracelets. 400+ Contemporary Jewellery Designs

Jewelry designer Johanna Tornqvist makes bracelets out of cast-off packaging materials, while Elvire Blanc Briand finds inspiration in pastry-making techniques. The results can be seen in the book «New Bracelets» (Promopress), edited by Colombia-born jewelry designer Nicolas Estrada, which features more than 400 pieces from 200 artists.
Writing about her work, Nora Tengely asks: What if we picked jewelry «not in accordance with sight, but with other senses»? Her bracelets are named after sensations that they mimic, like a «caress» bracelet made of brass and feathery polyester and a «tickle» bracelet that consists of five balloons tied to a brass circle.

Steven Parker’s «Egyptian Bracelet» — made of vermeil, lapis lazuli, enamel, brass, steel and quartz — contains stylized hooded cobras and hieroglyphics that contain a riddle. Gigi Mariani also looks back millennia with «Stonehenge,» a ring of six prehistoric-looking blocks whose dark surface hides silver and yellow gold.

Other artists bring a sharp sense of humor. In «Body Museum» by Wei Si of China, a thin traditional bracelet comes inside its own boxy glass display case, which is also part of the jewelry.