The lines between jewellery and accessories are blurred in the hands of New Zealand-based jeweller Jasmin Sparrow, who plays with materials and forms for romantic, vintage-inspired designs. The brand is born from both Sparrow’s traditional jewellery training in Wellington and the personal connection she felt to her grandmother’s jewellery box while growing up. The feeling of stumbling upon a jewellery box filled with treasures is something she encapsulates in her own eclectic and sculptural works.
For Sparrow, it is an aesthetic rooted in sentimentality: ‘I've collected a lot of vintage jewellery over the years, and was fortunate enough to inherit pieces curated by my grandmother over a lifetime,’ she says. ‘She layered solid gold bangles, bracelets and rings in a way that fostered my love of jewellery, and my appreciation of how the subtlety and boldness of organic forms, in particular, have a timelessness to them. So while I look to vintage references and my personal archive to design pieces that endure, my approach is intuitive – shaped, I think, by my grandmother's approach to collecting and adorning herself with jewellery.’
When creating her own pieces, she is led by materiality, drawn to gold and silver but also the irregularity of freshwater pearls, which form the basis of delicate and luminous accessories. ‘They really echo our approach to form. There is something special about working with materials that come from nature. The responsibility to source sustainably also guides our choice of materials. We opt for precious recycled metals and ensure ethical mining and the full traceability of our gemstones and diamonds.’
These materials lend themselves to fluid silhouettes that highlight the curves of the body; the sensual nature of the pieces drawing the eye to the wrist, the ankle, the collarbone. ‘Wearing jewellery can heighten your own awareness of your body,’ Sparrow agrees. ‘Just as important as form, though, and its relationship with the body, is the wearer's personal or sentimental relationship to the piece, the memory it evokes, or the commitment it honours. It's a privilege to adorn people in such an intimate way.’
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