Interviews with Nardin Sabounchi
Designer profileDesigner Interview
28 June 2026
The desire to create something new has always been with me. The inner structure and mechanisms of things have always fascinated me. My ultimate goal is to create something that didn't exist before exactly as I envisioned it, especially to see how people interact with it. Because of this, I see myself as a designer much more than an artist.
Design is a way to express our minds and emotions; it is a tool to make a tangible change in the lives of others. It is the act of creation from a raw material or form. Think of it like cooking: everyone can have access to the exact same tools and ingredients, but everyone will get a completely different result because their approach is different. That unique approach is what makes life fun and makes observing others' journeys so beautiful.
Objects and spaces that people can touch, interact with, and express themselves through things they can get a genuine, positive impact out of. For me, a project doesn't end when the design or production phase finishes. It truly ends when I see the live reaction and interaction of the users and clients.
Even though it was my very first design when I entered the industry back in 2018, it is the Iran Ring for Taj Dorsa. The initial client request was a simple 3D model of an existing building, but I chose to inject story, meaning, emotion, and a timeless approach by integrating various historical monuments from different cities across Iran.
The Iran Ring for Taj Dorsa. It is still being sold today and has been featured on billboards across Iran. I actually met someone randomly in Paris recently and noticed she was wearing it. When I told her I was the designer, she didn't believe me at first! Once I proved it, she was shocked and shared a beautiful story with me: she explained how difficult immigration is, forcing you to fit your whole life into just one piece of luggage. But with this ring which was a parting gift from her friends she feels like she is always carrying a piece of Iran with her.
I love exploring all materials and I never limit myself. When it comes to technology, I am a quick adopter. I find it fascinating how new tools can elevate both the final design and the creative process itself. Right now, experimenting with AI is my new hobby and tool. While it isn't quite ready for advanced 3D modeling yet, it immensely enhances the early ideation phase.
If a project is actively in motion and I am actively solving obstacles, I find it impossible to stop myself from creating more variations or adding new layers. Discovering art and seeing other people's designs also heavily inspires me. Because of that, working in a group environment with people easily fuels my creativity.
Being unexpected and refusing to let a design be defined by its constraints. I will gladly spend the majority of my time focusing on the exact part of a project that sounds like a limitation, purely to find a creative solution to overcome it. Limits do not get to define my design.
Pure joy and liveliness. It gives meaning to my life, it's a sense of pure, unfiltered happiness, like being a kid again.
I get incredibly motivated when my designs come to life and get noticed. At the end of the day, we are designing for clients, users, and the public not for ourselves. When I see people actively using and interacting with a space or object, that is when I know the design has been truly recognized.
The longevity and actual use of the design. Sometimes, certain designs are far ahead of their time; no one notices them right away, but later on, people understand their value and the change they created. I view that long-term impact as a truly successful design, far beyond just commercial success.
Creativity, thinking out of the box, and the element of the unexpected.
I live in Paris and work as the Pop-Up and Event Design Manager at Berluti (LVMH Maison). In this role, I strictly follow the brand’s specific DNA and heritage, which is separate from my personal culture. That said, my background and culture fundamentally formed my overall approach to design. So while it definitely exists under the surface, defining its exact presence on the final design isn't always easy.
Being a designer gives you the power to shape experiences, but the disadvantage is that the creative process especially in big companies is often taken for granted. Very few people truly recognize or respect the immense time and effort hidden behind the scenes. Many times, outsiders mistakenly think it is the software doing the designing, rather than the designer.
The sky is the limit.
Beyond having natural creativity, tracking industry trends, and understanding history, the ability to present your design is absolutely crucial in today’s oversaturated world.
"How did you manage to come up with this idea?" or "What does your thinking process look like to achieve this result?"
Always as a team. I can safely say that it is almost impossible in the modern design field to design something from 1 to 100 entirely by yourself. For example, all the designs at ela.store are the beautiful result of teamwork alongside Nilufar Salehi, Sadaf Shafie, and the many talented others who are always credited in the work.
I am currently working on the Paris Design Week press event design for Berluti here in Paris. For the upcoming 2027 collection, the core inspiration and philosophy was drawn from Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), and the final result is going to be amazing.
Instagram: @nnardinn or email :)
Grand Interview
28 June 2026 · Front Bracelet
My approach to jewelry is to completely ignore what it's supposed to be and treat it as limitless sculpture. Function comes second. With most jewelry, you can easily trace the designer's predictable steps, but I refuse to be limited by that.For the Front Bracelet, I challenged the common structure. Bracelets are almost always designed from top view, starting with a rigid circle. I flipped that and designed from the front view, starting with dynamic, intersecting lines. The circle doesn't define the design; it’s simply there to hold the lines together.This ties directly to Sohrab Sepehri’s 'The Footsteps of Water.' His philosophy of 'washing our eyes to see things differently' drove my shift in perspective. The crossing lines mimic the free, unpredictable flow of water, while the circle acts merely as the quiet riverbank holding the art in place.
When jewelry is treated merely as a commercial product, decoration stays flat on the surface—it becomes a superficial skin. Because I view jewelry as a pure, three-dimensional sculpture, I don't recognize a strict 'inside' or 'outside.' I see a total volume.Breaking away from surface ornamentation was a natural consequence of my decision to design the bracelet from the front view rather than the traditional top-down view. By focusing on how lines intersect and weave through space, the decoration inherently became internal and interlaced. It forces the viewer's eye to look through the piece rather than just at it.
Water never flows the same way twice; it is constantly changing shape as it moves forward.By keeping the horizontal axis completely asymmetrical, the piece transforms entirely depending on how you look at it. If you view it from the top, the bottom, or the side, the geometry changes. I wanted to ensure the sculpture remains dynamic and alive, never settling into a single, predictable form.
Because my design philosophy demands that I completely ignore manufacturing limits during the initial sketching phase, the early forms were incredibly intricate, featuring interlacing internal paths that traditional jewelry molds simply could not handle.3D printing was not just a convenience; it was the only way to liberate these complex, fluid geometries. The technical obstacles shaped the final design by forcing a perfect marriage between eras. Modern 3D wax printing gave us the freedom to create the uninhibited, crossing lines, while traditional hand-casting and meticulous manual polishing gave the silver its human warmth. The key insight I gained is that technology shouldn't replace traditional craftsmanship it should be used to free it from its historical limitations.
Commercial jewelry is usually passive; a classic bracelet sits on the wrist and requires no effort to understand. The Front Bracelet actively demands a pause. It forces the viewer to look at it face-front to comprehend how the internal lines cross through space. This is Sepehri’s famous line, 'We should wash our eyes, we should see things differently,' brought to life as a physical object. You cannot understand the truth of this sculpture with a passing glance from a traditional top-down view. By altering the required angle of observation, the piece challenges the viewer to break their daily routines and engage in a deeper, more intentional moment of discovery.
If you worry about the constraints of the wrist too early, you inevitably fall back into traditional, uninspired geometries. I designed the crossing lines as a pure sculpture first.Once the artistic form was locked in, I treated wearability as an engineering puzzle to solve inside that form. Because of the internal details, the dimensions naturally diverged from standard industry sizing. But the interlaced internal elements actually allowed me to hollow out sections to perfectly balance the weight of the silver, while the outer circle was precisely engineered to secure the wrist without disrupting the external, sweeping lines.
Too often, incorporating cultural heritage into design is reduced to merely copying ancient motifs, patterns, or calligraphy and placing them on a modern surface. To me, true heritage is about inheriting a philosophy, not just a visual cliché.Sohrab Sepehri’s poetry provided the philosophical soul of the piece: the concepts of continuous flow, breaking boundaries, and seeing the world 'otherwise.' Modern minimalism provided the structural toolkit clean lines, geometric precision, and a refusal of unnecessary decoration. The fusion isn't a superficial aesthetic; it’s a deeply Persian philosophy expressed through a contemporary, architectural language."
The most profound discovery was learning the value of empty space. On a digital screen during the 3D modeling phase, you tend to focus entirely on the solid material—the lines of silver. But during the year-long process of physical prototyping, I realized that the negative space and the shadows cast inside the bracelet were just as crucial as the metal itself.As light passed through the front-facing lines, it created shifting patterns on the wearer's skin. I learned that in concept-driven jewelry, what you leave empty can be just as emotionally powerful as what you fill with solid material.
The choice of material alters how light behaves across the horizontal asymmetry, demonstrating that a single form can tell entirely different stories depending on the medium. If executed in yellow gold, the warmth deepens the shadows within the interlaced internal lines.
The collection has already grown to include more than six distinct designs, and it serves as an ongoing playground for this philosophy. Each piece is an independent trial in form. I am experimenting with entirely different geometric languages some designs rely on fluid, sweeping lines, while others challenge the strict boundaries of circles and sharp squares.However, no matter how much the geometry shifts from piece to piece, every single design strictly respects the core philosophy: it must be viewed and experienced from the front.
