The Roaring Lion Statement Choker

This piece was designed for artist and philanthropist Qymira, to honor her elegance, strength, and unmistakable presence while on tour in the UK. The Roaring Lion Choker embodies duality, fierce and graceful, majestic and intimate. Inspired by the lion not just as a symbol of royalty and courage, but as a reflection of Qymira’s commanding stage presence and quiet resilience offstage, it channels her voice, roaring when it must, whispering when it wants. Crafted as a tribute, it became a statement of empowerment, protection, and untamed beauty.

My main focus was to create a piece that would transcend ornament, something that could speak. The goal was to embody the force and fragility of Qymira’s presence into a wearable sculpture, capturing a voice that roars for justice and sings for peace. I wanted the choker to feel like armor and poetry at once, a tribute, but also a talisman. It had to reflect identity, not just style.

The Roaring Lion Choker will be auctioned to raise funds for the One Gaia Foundation, an initiative created and financed by Qymira to support children in need around the world. It’s a deeply personal gesture: a piece designed in her image, now set to serve her mission. This is where art becomes a bridge, between beauty and purpose, between strength and care. The choker’s roar, once a tribute to her spirit, now becomes a voice for those who need to be heard most.

The Lion choker was born from a dual pulse, the raw energy of New York’s Greenwich Village and the quiet force of the Atlantic wind in Bayonne. It was made for Qymira, an artist who carries strength and vulnerability in equal measure, and I needed to design something that could hold all of that.I never set out to balance tradition and innovation; it simply became necessary. The lion, a symbol of courage and presence, came from my own roots, deeply grounded in the Basque Country and the old codes of local regalia.I started with hand sketches, shaping the proportions, the weight, the emotional charge of the piece. Then we brought it into 3D, refining the facets so that light would ripple across the surface like breath.We faced real performance constraints rigidity for stage movement, comfort on skin, durability over time, so we embedded fine stainless steel rods hidden inside to give strength without stiffness. The piece had to be heavy enough to sit yet light enough to move. That was the true challenge.Craftsmanship stayed at the core. From casting the lion in white gold to choosing every Tahitian pearl and diamond, each element was placed with intent. The seven black pearls on each side, nestled among iridescent white, carry a secret meaning. Technology helped us fine-tune it, but the hands still did the work. It’s more than jewelry, a kind of armor, an extension of who she is.

The faceted style has become part of my design language. It began twenty years ago when I sculpted a faceted skull, not a jewel, just an object full of raw tension and light. Since then, I’ve kept exploring that visual vocabulary.With the lion, I didn’t want it to be decorative; I wanted it to feel alive. Not roaring in sound, but in presence. Each facet was placed to catch light like a silent roar, strength you don’t hear but see. The lion carries Qymira’s voice and music further, to places she still have to discover.I worked obsessively on the form, from hand sketches to digital modeling. I wasn’t chasing perfection but something more human, symmetry with soul. Every angle was guided by instinct, not by math.

The piece had to reflect her name, Qymira, the chimera, a creature of duality and transformation. From the start, I knew this wasn’t going to be a passive object. It had to move with her, to hold energy without ever getting in the way.Designing for her meant designing for emotion in motion. It had to stay perfectly aligned through intense stage performances, being fluid and wearable.She didn’t need a jewel; she needed a talisman, something that could carry her presence on stage and beyond.