Jewelry Designers are connecting to DIGITAL PALETTE GAMING AND METAVERSE
Post-Pandemic Restart, Self-Expressions styling, Digital tribes
The metaverse has sparked a creative renaissance in the design world. It’s a medium that has bred a new form of culture and matrix of beauty, reflecting ever evolving societal values. As the Web 3.0 era continues to expand and grow, designers find their way into the virtual world to tell stories and explore unique narratives through jewelry. Gaming, digital art through to the world of cryptocurrencies are influencing ‘real world’ design – be it in terms of aesthetics or how they bring them to life through AI technology. From hyper-realistic images of ethereal, other-worldly structures, holographic and pixelated backgrounds to complex abstractions, a rich mix of bright or highly contrasting colors, are revolutionizing design expression.
Designers are gaining full creative power over the digital world. There’s a sense of freedom and playfulness that now translates into liquified silhouettes, iridescent colors, unconventional and fantastical forms. A growing cadre of Italian designers like Alessio Boschi have collaborated with leading Web 3.0 pioneers to propel their physical pieces into the virtual world, highlighting that this is fast becoming a platform for a new and invigorating extension of design. Irreverent crypto cameos by Amedeo enter the new metaverse space, projecting the future of ancient craft into the phygital world. This is skilfully achieved by melding virtual components with the essence of storytelling.
Space age materials like titanium and colored metal are also radically transforming the design language and texture of a jewel. Colored metal in both reflective and matte finishes appeals to the Millennial and Generation Z injecting bright color and visual contrast. Artistic ways to master and manipulate metal is evident in the ‘Mirror’ and ‘Helix’ creations by Italian jeweler Fabio Salini. Jewelers like Anteo Gioielli, Vhernier, Giovanni Ferraris, Pianegonda, Mizar, Giloro also express this digital futuristic feel.
Beauty Redefined
A new wave of young Italian designers explores unknown territories in jewelry making through the lens of traditional Italian design. Irreverent, unserious, uncomplicated forms become a refreshing contrast to the relatively stiff traditional jewelry offering. Designers like Panconesi, Bea Bongiasca play by their own rules, hovering between tradition and disruption, heritage and radical concepts, giving life to a paradoxical mix of aesthetics. They rebel against the status quo through bold mismatched styles, chaotic combinations of high and low materials, hybrid gemstones that reflect the kaleidoscopic structures, outlandish vision and vivid colors emerging from the metaspace. Beauty is redefined in the Metaverse, where new identities emerge that play with scale and proportion. This is interpreted by designers through provocative pieces that range from exaggerated shapes adorning unforeseen places to surrealist forms. Florentine designer Marco Panconesi skilfully manipulates techniques and materials to create objects of a third kind – an orbit hoop that spins upwards to become an ear cuff, while pearls and gold are dipped in enamel of liquefying lava. Colors become hyperreal and amplified. Unstructured globular forms render an alien-like playful design. These pieces mark a newfound harmony between unexpected materials in bright metallic shades and contrasting combinations.
