Motley London has collaborated with Central Saint Martins graduate Zak Sheinman on the ‘Playful Protest’ collection, which reinterprets the large inflatables used as barriers in peaceful protests, in silver and gold vermeil.
Sheinman, who graduated last year, unites his skills as both a 3D animator and jewellery designer in this collection, with pieces that began as digital animations that distorted and ‘blew up’ traditional jewellery shapes into puffy silhouettes. Once crafted digitally, they were brought to life and teased into voluminous shapes. ‘This aesthetic was inspired by these playful protests – I puffed up and inflated traditional shapes; a protest against the traditional structure of jewellery,’ says Sheinman. ‘The idea of showing the animations alongside the jewellery and seeing them as wearable animations – blurring the digital and physical boundaries – also really appealed.’
The exaggerated collisions and unrealistic shapes of cartoons inspired him for the pieces, which bring a buoyant tactility to solid materials. The designs rethink classic forms – the hoop, the chain, the ring, the pendant – so they appear as if puffed up with air, with undulating lines making for fluid and fun adornments.
The creation process was not without its challenges. ‘Motley worked with incredibly skilled ateliers to bring these pieces to life,’ says Sheinman, who was awarded Motley’s annual award which supports new jewellery designers to help them get into the industry. ‘The biggest challenge was to create the “lightness” and craft the detail of the blow-up animations in silver: hollow forms are notoriously difficult. Working closely with the makers in Italy, we pushed the boundaries of a technique called electroforming, which enabled the earrings to be both an impactful scale and impossibly light. In their words, to create the “puffy’”, we challenged ourselves – as Motley always ask us to!’
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