Dazed Fashion, ‘8 emerging jewellery designers to have on your radar’
From cigarette butts to solid gold carabiner clips, we discover what’s inspiring the future of jewellery design
Text by Isobel Van Dyke
When did you first start making jewellery?
Kristina Merchant: I first fell in love with creating jewellery during an artist residency on the Isle of Skye in 2021. Inspired by land artists like Andy Goldsworthy, I began working with natural materials and found objects – seaweed, rocks, and discarded bits from the landscape. I’d gradually transitioned them into jewellery, and in 2022 I began studying my degree of silversmithing and jewellery at the Glasgow School of Art.
How would you describe the style of your work?
Kristina Merchant: I’d describe my style as conceptual and performative. I’m drawn to both land art and the urban environment, as well as to memories of my family’s heritage of pub landladies. I gather research like cigarette butts, chewing gum, and beer caps, those often-overlooked, temporary fragments that hover between waste and relic.
What’s one piece of jewellery you’d love to own?
Kristina Merchant: I’ve been completely enamoured with Gisbert Stach’s ‘fish finger’ brooch, an iconic piece where amber is sculpted into a literal fish finger.
“The pieces you hold most dear might have started their lives from a random, found object (a shell, a piece of glass, a beer cap), or been moulded into shape with the help of rocks, fossils or wax. In 2025, jewellery design and its methods are more creative than ever before, as proven at Dover Street Market, where a new crop of emerging jewellers are currently displaying their work. ”