After months of restrained design and comfortable cuts, the optimism of spring has us yearning for jewellery both colourful and fun.
Colin Lynch, the jewellery designer behind Keane jewellery, has captured the zeitgeist with his joyful range of pieces hand blown in glass. Crafted in a range of sugary sweet hues and set in hypnotising spirals and curves, rings, bracelets and earrings are crying out to be worn stacked on the arms and fingers for a sweet summery refresh.
Classically trained in glassblowing in Venice, Lynch went on to study glass at the Rhode Island School of Design before launching his brand in 2017. Now, he makes his jewels from his studio in Brooklyn, inspired for his new collection by both the psychedelic revolution of the Seventies and traditional Japanese sweets, their powdery hues reflected in the eclectic range of pieces sustainably-imagined and made to last.
‘Glass dictates your design will happen in the process, as opposed to an end result,’ says Lynch. ‘It’s a material that can present a million ‘problems' that are really only problems if you have a specific goal or outcome in mind. With glass, the design process is as much about my ability to see something I wasn't expecting as it is about composing a production process.’
The unpredictability of glass means jewellery steps away from a rigid aesthetic, casting free-flowing silhouettes to dangle from the ears or loop around the wrists for fun and fresh results. ‘After a pretty tough year for most of the world, I think people seek comfort and empowerment in surrounding themselves with things that have a bright, secure feeling. Glass provides that in today’s historical context . Transparency and clarity are things we as a society cannot, and will not, live without.’
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