Ataraxia: A New Dawn for Gothic-Inspired Jewelry

Yilan Liu's Award-Winning Collection Merges Tradition with Innovation

Ataraxia encapsulates the sublime internal atmosphere of Gothic architecture, exploiting its structural details to stimulate particular feelings and explore emotional experiences. Synthetic gemstones, chosen for their lower eco-imprint, are cut into unusually flat surfaces to cast their colors onto the skin, enhancing the collection's vibe. The jewelry acts as a medium to provoke unique individual experiences, challenging production to realize all the intricate details.

The production process, which lasted about a month, involved wax curving, casting, stone cutting, model modification, stone setting, metal finishing, and gold plating. Adjustments were made to some design details during this process. The materials used include synthetic gemstones such as cubic zirconia, synthetic spinel, and synthetic ruby, cut into unusually flat surfaces. The metal component is gold-plated silver.

The collection includes a variety of pieces, each with its unique dimensions. The ring No.1 measures 41mm x 18mm x 30mm, ring No.2 is 28mm x 28mm x 36mm, the bangle is 75mm x 75mm x 22mm, and the earring is 21mm x 59mm x 8mm. Each piece, inspired by Gothic architecture, combines the old with the new, interpreting traditional culture with contemporary fashion language.

The project began in London in October 2017 and was completed in May 2019. It was exhibited at the Central Saint Martins Degree Show in June 2019, where it was awarded a Distinction. The production was completed in China. The underlying research focused on Gothic culture and the purchasing behavior of customers towards contemporary jewelry, using resources such as books, journals, online articles, and relevant market data.

The main challenge was to realize all the design details to achieve the best result. Many details in the design made it difficult to polish all the corners without causing damage. After several experiments, sand blasting was chosen as the main metal finishing technique, combined with full polish of the top faces of the settings. This ensured all the details were preserved while giving the collection a feel of flexibility. The stone cutting process also went through a lot of experiments to decide the thickness to gain the best effect.

Ataraxia was awarded the Golden A' Jewelry, Eyewear and Watch Design Award in 2020. This prestigious award is granted to marvelous, outstanding, and trendsetting creations that reflect the designer's prodigy and wisdom. They are venerated products and bright ideas that advance art, science, design, and technology, embodying extraordinary excellence and significantly impacting the world with their desirable characteristics.