Jewelry reborned: a new life for materials with Matilde Mozzanega and her AUTOR winning collection, Bling & Bloom, at this year’s online edition of Precious Collective Jewelry Week.
Matilde Mozzanega is a contemporary jewelry designer from Milan, based in London. A Central Saint Martins’ Jewellery Design graduate with a First Class Honours Degree in 2018, who then spent one year in Florence attending an MFA Degree in Alchimia School of Jewellery and Body Ornaments.
She is the new AUTOR Media Award winner at PCOJW (Precious Collective Online Jewelry Week), this title promising a constant promotion of her work on our media Platforms, as well as a constant support for her artistic career development.
Matilde currently produces her own pieces and works as a jewelry maker and designer for the sustainable, London based jewellery brand Completedworks. She is also a freelance Jewellery & Manufacturing tutor at the British Academy of Jewellery in London.
Her work sits within the context of Contemporary Jewellery & Sustainability. Matilde is interested in the qualities of non-precious materials, how to transform and repurpose them. Her pieces challenge the idea of preciousness and value within our society by repurposing recycled and waste materials, giving them a second life.
About the winning collection, Bling & Bloom
The Bling & Bloom collection consists of playful, contemporary necklaces made out of Swarovski crystals and flowers, vacuum sealed within recyclable plastic pouches. Borrowing the aesthetic from traditional colliers and pearl necklaces, the design is a commentary on the current and urgent issue related to packaging plastic waste.
The pieces are a continuation series from her graduate collection – Transparent Waste, The power of Transformation. The inspiration for this collection came from the exuberant Netflix series The House of Flowers, Jewellery for the Eye and the Soul – created as part of a group exhibition during Munich Jewellery Week 2021.
Bling&Bloom – Transparent Waste Revival is a collection that combines traditional jewellery with packaging waste. The two aesthetics are clashing and at the same time they highlight one another. The colourful chains are made out of recycled plastic. Each necklace represents a season and a flower with its meaning:
SPRING – TULIP (HOPE)
SUMMER – DAHLIA (GRATITUDE)
AUTUMN – BROMELIA (RESILIENCE)
WINTER – TUSSILAGO (WORRIES)
This collection wants to draw attention to the major and current issue related to plastic waste. It also invites the wearer to be quite playful with the way the necklaces are worn. In fact, the pouches can be exchanged with someone else or the chain can be removed and one can use a chain they already have with the existing pouch.
This is a playful and interactive way of rethinking jewelry and at the same time it wants to highlight a very important issue that affects us all.
Currently, Matilde is working on a new, exciting collection, as a development of her Transparent Waste necklaces. At its core, there will once again be the aesthetic of packaging and jewelry, deeply intertwined, yet in contrast, with one another. It will use recycled precious metals, as well as recycled gems and the packaging will be as crucial as the jewelry itself. The collection will be launched online and it will be on show during Schmuck Jewelry Week 2022.
