There is nothing more satisfying than seeing a project that you have invested a huge amount of creative energy into coming to fruition. This is certainly the case with Jewelled Garden, our new jewellery collection exploring the world of terrariums and succulents, aloe vera and echeveria, and healing crystal properties. Alyson Mowat and I met several times over the years - working on photography projects or swapping jewellery and terrariums - before finding ourselves embarking on a project to combine our interests.
Alyson Mowat specialises in botanical sculpture, often encapsulating or suspending her living works. She explores the ephemeral, natural change and preservation allowing her work to evolve as nature takes its course offering the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.
“My story is one of cultivation, curation and adventures across the globe in search of green inspiration. In my desire to celebrate nature yet remain firmly rooted in the urban jungle of London, I have established Botanique to create natural scenes and lush backdrops in city settings.”
My parallel interests, particularly shown in the Entomology collection which explores the fleeting beauty of insects and their brief life-cycles, their dark beauty and the antithetical reactions they produce in people of disgust or desire once they are transformed into precious metals.
The Jewelled Garden melds the aesthetic interests of Alyson Mowat of Botanique Boutique and my own studies, in a designer silver jewellery collection inspired by the terrarium – and the magic it holds.
The world of the terrarium, an entire plant ecosystem encased within glass, is both verdant and contained. It is this seeming contradiction that the collection so deftly captures. Our need to seize life’s beauty – as well as its transience – is celebrated in a series of superbly crafted and uniquely sculptural pieces.
Together, our playful sense of dark enchantment and their exploration into female sexuality, devoid of the male gaze, are evoked by the plants portrayed: the pretty, rose-like but hardy and strong Echeveria, the spiked and threatening by healing Aloe Vera known as the “Kumari”, or goddess, in Sanskrit. Also the deadly but divine Venus Flytrap, and The Lady Slipper Orchid with its flagrantly pouted lips which will soon be added to the collection.
In this collection you will find sterling silver terrarium necklaces, silver echeveria bracelets and necklaces, healing crystal necklaces encased in solid silver terrarium frames, aloe vera necklaces and bracelets, and designer earrings inspired by succulents.
Shop The Jewelled Garden Collection
Yasmin
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P.S. View more of Alyson Mowat's beautiful creations at Botanique Boutique.