Bronze Jewelry Design · 2025
Packaging Bejeweled Statement Jewelry
by Nanxi Yang
- A' Design Award 2025 Bronze Winner in Jewelry Design
- Awarded April 15, 2025
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 19,945
- Verification code 1E7EF1B230 · Verify this award
About Packaging Bejeweled Statement Jewelry
Packaging Bejeweled is inspired by the designer's observations and reflections on disposable packaging that is commonly discarded in daily life. The design aims to provoke audiences' thoughts about the connection and contrast between inexpensive disposable packaging and valuable jewelry. It suggests that even the most affordable materials can become beautiful when reimagined and creatively repurposed in jewelry. This concept allows plastic packaging to become an integral part of the jewelry. Wearers have the option to display and protect their cherished items inside the transparent casing.
Packaging Bejeweled Statement Jewelry by Nanxi Yang situates itself within contemporary jewelry design's ongoing exploration of ornament as sculptural intervention and bodily architecture, engaging with traditions that trace through modernist studio jewelry movements while embracing fabrication technologies and aesthetic sensibilities particular to twenty-first-century design practice. The work demonstrates accomplished compositional intelligence through its strategic deployment of tonal contrast and geometric organization, establishing visual hierarchy through the careful orchestration of matte and reflective surfaces, organic and engineered forms, linear and modular elements that together create a cohesive yet dynamically complex visual statement. The technical execution reveals considerable sophistication in the integration of multiple material vocabularies—the cool precision of polished metal, the warm organic luster of cultured pearls, the yielding textile support of ribbed knit fabric—each material system retaining its distinct character while contributing to a unified aesthetic proposition. The jewelry itself operates as a hybrid between traditional strand necklace typology and contemporary body sculpture, its interconnected circular modules suggesting influences ranging from molecular diagrams and cellular structures to parametric design systems and modular architectural thinking, the formal language speaking to both jewelry's historical function as personal adornment and its expanded contemporary role as conceptual investigation into how objects mediate between body and social space. The compositional choice to present the jewelry on a partially visible figure rather than in pure product isolation proves significant, as the bodily presence activates the ornament, demonstrating its scale, drape, weight distribution, and transformative effect upon the adorned body while the figure's anonymity—face partially obscured by gesture, no individualizing features emphasized—renders the body itself as archetypal support and universal proposition rather than specific portrait, this universalizing strategy inviting viewers to imaginatively project themselves into relationship with the jewelry and consider their own potential transformation through ornament. The monochromatic palette serves multiple functions simultaneously, unifying disparate material elements within a cohesive tonal framework, emphasizing form and structure over chromatic distraction, and establishing an aesthetic register that reads as simultaneously timeless and contemporary, restrained and dramatic, the absence of color allowing viewers to focus on proportion, geometry, rhythm, material quality, and spatial relationship as the primary carriers of meaning and visual interest. Thematically, the work appears to explore questions about ornament's capacity to reimagine and restructure bodily presence, the jewelry functioning less as decorative supplement and more as architectural intervention that creates new silhouettes, establishes alternative proportional relationships, and proposes unfamiliar dialogues between organic human form and geometric constructed object, this investigation resonating with broader contemporary design discourse about wearability, bodily autonomy, and the politics and poetics of adornment. The work invites viewers to consider how jewelry might function beyond conventional beautification toward more conceptually ambitious territory—as wearable sculpture that challenges and expands normative relationships between body and object, as modular system that proposes new organizational logics for personal ornament, as material meditation on the contrasts between manufactured precision and organic irregularity, between the permanent and the transient, between structure and flexibility, how might such jewelry transform not only appearance but also movement, posture, spatial awareness, and the wearer's negotiation of physical and social environments?
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Packaging Bejeweled is inspired by the designer's observations on disposable packaging that is commonly discarded in daily life. Designers use cheap packaging instead of traditional jewelry production ways to explore the power of the combination of packaging and jewelry. It suggests that even the most affordable materials can become worthy of attention when reimagined and creatively repurposed.
This concept allows plastic packaging to become an integral part of the jewelry. Wearers can choose to place their cherished items, such as old wedding rings or heirloom jewelry from their parents, inside the transparent casing. This not only protects the precious jewelry but also showcases these treasures to viewers. This idea is central to what the designer wishes to convey through her work. - Dimensions & Packaging
- Necklace: 950mm x 170mm x 200mm
Brooch necklace: 350mm x 100mm x 30mm
Earrings: 165mm x 50mm x 35mm
Ring: 70mm x 20mm x 35mm - Tags
- Jewelry, Sustainable, Contemporary, Innovative, Traditional and nontraditional, Pearl, Metal, Packaging, Wearable
- Production Technology
- The main materials are resin, recyclable printing materials, pearls, silver and gold.
In the production process, firstly, each part is accurately modeled according to the hand-drawn drawing, then by using 3D printing technology, the factory prints out the model of different colors and materials. After polishing and electroplating, the various material parts are spliced to form the final work.
each pearl or diamond is placed separately in the transparent 3D printing resin shell, so that the pearls and diamonds are no longer just connected by ropes or embedded on the metal. - Design Challenge
- Since this type of combination is a new attempt, it is necessary to test and evaluate the shape, weight, material, color, transparency, target customer during the design process. The final works it should show the beauty and elegance of jewelry when the wearer wears it.
From a social point of view, this works it not only uses non-traditional jewelry materials and technologies, but also gives the low utilization value of disposable packaging a new utilizable value. Therefore, for the customer, The target demographic may be specific and need to be customized. This group need to consider about their age, work, occasion, etc. - Project Duration
- Packaging Bejeweled begins in London in April 2023, ends in London in June 2023 and be presented by Lethaby Gallery at Design Transform in London in October 2023.
- Operation Flow
- The necklace (the largest) is a combination of a necklace and a waist chain, which can be worn on the chest or behind the back, and is tightly and elegantly integrated with the body. A brooch necklace is a brooch and necklace dual-purpose jewelry, that can be used as a necklace, and can also be pinned to the clothes, showing different wearing angles. These two necklaces have been re-split, breaking the traditional way of connecting a string of pearls, and displaying the pearl chain and jewelry inside a transparent plastic shell, which becomes the main decorative part. The earrings are asymmetrical in design, and composed of two parts: an ear hanger and an ear needle. The pin is fixed through the ear hole, hangs from the ear, and surrounds the wearer's ear. Finally, the design of the ring and earrings is a combination of curves from large to small, and the pearls can be seen inside the opening, just like wearing a jewelry box with pearl jewelry inside.
- Research
- In my research, I focus on sustainable materials, especially in disposable packaging. I've found that many types of packaging in London supermarkets can be recycled and reused. Factories efficiently recycle plastic from domestic waste, which helps protect the environment and conserve natural resources. This led me to explore the many possibilities of sustainable materials and jewelry..
I discovered several London manufacturers that produce and recycle sustainable plastics like HDPE, resin, PVC, and PET. Resin, in particular, stands out for its good plasticity and transparency after polishing. Using 3D printing increases material efficiency and reduces waste, making it a strong commercial choice due to its durability and ease of production.
I also looked into jewelry packaging, noting that high-end brands like Tiffany and Cartier use luxurious packaging that often ends up unused at home. To make jewelry packaging more appealing, I chose royal blue and red velvet, inspired by both historical royal families and modern luxury brands. This packaging adds value and significance to the jewelry, enhancing the customer experience during important moments like proposals. - Inspiration
- I was inspired by the plastic packaging of eggs because I found that this transparent plastic packaging is a good way to protect the eggs inside from being damaged during transportation and display so that they can be stored longer. Therefore, I associate eggs with jewelry, both of which are precious treasures that need to be carefully protected. I am very interested in the connection and contrast between the two. Then I studied the disposable packaging of different supermarket products and the recycling process in factories. In this era of excessive packaging and waste, I believe that packaging is not only a short-term display and storage function but should have a long-term sustainability role in jewelry design. Therefore, my job is to integrate sustainability into my work and make works that are in line with contemporary values and aesthetics.
- Image Credits
- Image #1: Photographer Louise-threepainters studio, Packaging Bejeweled Necklace, 2024.
Image #2: Photographer Louise-threepainters studio, Packaging Bejeweled Brooch Necklace, 2024.
Image #3: Photographer Louise-threepainters studio, Packaging Bejeweled Transparent Brooch Necklace, 2024.
Image #4: Photographer Louise-threepainters studio, Packaging Bejeweled Red Velvet Earrings and Ring, 2024.
Image #5: Photographer Louise-threepainters studio, Packaging Bejeweled Royal Blue Earrings and Ring, 2024.
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