The Design Behind The Jewellery
- Margarita Kouklaki Ntourou
- Apr 28, 2018
- 2 min read
What goes into creating Karen's signature jewellery style: the bold, clean and contemporary statement pieces?
One factor is the attempt to have both big artistic pieces and more practical wearable ones. Both showing the two sides of Karen that contribute to her success; she is an artist with business experience, being both creative and business focused.
Secondly, knowing that every collection needs an inspiration behind it. Karen is inspired by daily life and nature itself. She puts her every day emotions into her work saying:
''I know from the start if the collection has a leg to stand on, I come up with designs and live on them for a while. There are lots and lots of sketchbooks involved however not much goes to waste''.
There is no clear structured schedule in the design process. Karen starts by designing the big statement pieces without thinking so much about the reality behind them but the results.
Those tend to be the more artistic and expensive pieces, such as neck pieces and collars, as seen above from the Spirit Collection.
Karen then goes from bigger to smaller, like those seen above, also from the Spirit Collection, that are more practical and affordable pieces. She knows that she has a full collection when she has designed the rings and earrings.
Whilst her other three collections, seen bellow, have different inspirations, Perseverance was inspired by her battles of ill health, Serenity by Buddhist signing bowls and Hope by a charity climb at Mt Kilimanajaro. They also seem to have different designs too.
Perseverance was more practical and wearable, Serenity was architectural and sculptural using geometric patterns, and hope featured organic, tactile, surface patterns and textures achieved by etching silver.
Her most recent collection, Spirit, launched in May 2014 and inspired by the glacial landscape on Mt Everest stands out in design as it includes 3D innovations and allowed Karen to explore additive manufacturing as a production tool.
This embrace of the new technology and the change from one collection to the rest demonstrates how Karen is in fact a contemporary artist. She is not constricted to one design process, she likes to push boundaries and explore as much as she can the different designing processes. This for Karen is a lifestyle choice, to always be flexible in order to embrace all opportunities.
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