New Blood

Get to know Bea Bongiasca, Elizaveta Borzunova (of Liz Borzaya) and Sandrine De Laage, talented designers who are evolving the jewellery landscape in creative and cheerful ways

Get to know Bea Bongiasca, Elizaveta Borzunova (of Liza Borzaya) and Sandrine De Laage

BEA BONGIASCA

As a high schooler, Bea Bongiasca made jewellery out of miniature doll food. She then discovered food miniatures on a trip to Tokyo and turned them into delicious charms for earrings and necklaces. Her playful ideas evolved over time: Today, this young awardwinning Milanese jeweller has been turning heads internationally with her surrealist pop-art jewels, often imbued with Eastern-inspired design codes. The Central Saint Martins alumna launched her eponymous brand in 2014 and the inspiration for her earlier works – Happy Go Cola, No Rice, No Life, A Golden Lesson, and Floricultural – stem from her fascination with East Asia and her travels through the region. Rice grains and paddy fields, blossoms and vines, symbolism and kawaii culture have traversed through Bea’s creative palette.

This summer, she debuted a new addition, You Are So Vine – an enamel line that branches off from her Floricultural series. “The idea was that the iconic pieces from the Floricultural collection have been contaminated and intertwined with sinuous colourful vines of enamelled gold that give the jewellery a kinetic movement and a bold pop look. It wasn’t so much the flowers that inspired me; it was the vines and how they interact with other plants,” reveals Bongiasca. Drop and marquise-cut gems – amethyst, peridot, blue topaz, rock crystal, corundum – and diamonds accent the bright sinuous vines that transform into ravishing hoops, pendants, rings, ear cuffs; each begging to be worn.