Dezeen-Awards winner Shahar Livne worked with Balenciaga to design a line of "dystopian" ocean-plastic jewellery for the luxury fashion brand's latest Fall 2021 collection.
The jewellery range, which comprises three different bangles, one ring and two pairs of hooped earrings, was designed to complement Balenciaga's Afterworld: Age of Tomorrow collection.
The Balenciaga accessories team adapted the shapes of vintage jewellery pieces from their archives, before handing them over to Livne, who remolded them to give them a new "fossilized" texture.
This was done by recreating them from a mixture of ocean plastic retrieved by Oceanworks and calcium carbonate ? a waste product from the marble industry. The jewellery is made from a mixture of ocean plastic and calcium carbonate
After this had been done, the final pieces were 3D scanned and 3D printed to create a unified look for the collection. These models were then reproduced, moulded again using the same, initial process of heat, pressure and hand-shaping.
Each piece was finished by hand by Livne, who employed techniques used by goldsmiths to give the accessories a unified, yet still handmade look. This included fitting the jewellery with metal parts such as the ear pieces of the earrings.
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