Every new creation starts life as a basic idea and is developed until it emerges as the perfect piece of jewellery. Last year one of our most popular designs – the Blue Rhapsody set was born, and here’s the story behind it.
INSPIRATION BEHIND THE DESIGN
Like many people I’ve always loved the colour blue. I usually feel my most calm when looking out over aqua blue waters of a lake or sea and feel happy when the sky is bright blue without a cloud in the sky. Colour psychology tells us that these tones invoke feelings of serenity and peace. So I wanted for a while to create a very special set of jewellery to reflect all of this. I knew last year it was time to work on this project when “Classic Blue” was announced it would be the Pantone colour of 2020 and bright shades of blue became a massive trend at New York Fashion Week.
GEMSTONES IN A BEAUTIFUL BLUE PALETTE
There is an array of possible gemstones to work with within the blue palette of tones. We started by looking at all the variations from the bright shades of Turquoise and Aqua Chalcedony through to the mottled blue green of Chrysocolla. From my original sketches and mood boards I knew I wanted the blues we would use to be bold and full of impact like the deepest blues in nature – the sea, peacock feathers, cornflowers and butterflies.
An obvious choice was the gorgeous Blue Iolite, which when cut well brings out a deep blue tone and reflects light for impact. To try to achieve the iridescent quality of butterfly wings I looked to Labradorite. There is a massive variation in the colour of this gemstone, and it can usually look very green, but we knew that it can sometimes possess a very striking blue tone so worked with our gemstone cutters to source the bluest varieties of Labradorite to use for the project. Finally we chose Rainbow Moonstone to offset the blues and be cut in the rough to better reflect the indigo tones within the white, which it naturally reflects when moving in light.
STATEMENT STYLING
As we had selected such beautiful stones to work with for this design we saw the pieces as being quite substantial to do the colours justice. We had already decided that this work would be part of our Goddess collection, as this range focuses on jewellery which features the natural beauty of gemstones for maximum impact. We developed the design as statement earrings to highlight the wearers face and a statement pendant.
We knew the bold blue colours would pop out against whatever clothes they would be worn with but especially the currently popular mustard yellow tones. I always saw this to be a Summer style design – perfect against warm skin tones and cool summer clothing, but have been thrilled with the results as these pieces have proved really versatile and also look amazing when paired with denims, cashmere wraps and evening wear.
Blue Rhapsody has become one of our most loved designs and we hope you find the jewellery pieces as eye-catching as we do.
SHOP BLUE RHAPSODY
