“I first came across JEM during a radio debate I was leading about sustainable development and fashion. We both believe it’s time for fashion and design to offer initiatives for sustainable and desirable products. I wished JEM a long and prosperous future. Then, a few months later, JEM approached me and asked me to work alongside them to create either one or several pieces of sustainable, covetable jewellery for them. Between these two meetings I had the most wonderful moment of my life, one that will stay with me forever. I found out that I was pregnant, that a wonderful little girl was to become part of me and my life forever more. She was to become the most wonderful, desirable and sustainable thing in my life. Lola. She was born 24.03.10.

When JEM suggested that I design their jewellery I was surprised but I was excited by the prospect of developing a new project, and yet scared that I wouldn’t be able to meet their requirements. Suddenly, my desire became clear, my heart raced, and I knew what I had to bring to life, create, wear, give. I want to support ethical values such as social commitment and respect for the environment. I very much want to work with precious materials, to create an accessible design, beauty, luxury object, to incorporate everyday codes, my everyday codes, to play with my little girl, to create memories for my baby, to think only of her when I design, when I make, when I wear (my jewellery). I want to blend fragility and utility, I want to bring out the brutality of the object and the delicacy of the gold, I want a piece of jewellery that is timeless, universal, a precious charm, a playful piece of jewellery, a piece of jewellery you can play with.

I looked at my little girl and I used part of her everyday, our everyday, in my work. Dressing and undressing her several times a day, I found the poppers that adorn the baby grows we swathe out little ones in wonderfully delicate, adorable, brutal, solid and precious. I then imagined turning these poppers into the “precious stones” of a feminine piece of jewellery, an XXL long necklace that can be clipped together at different lengths and in different ways to transform it into a shorter necklace with several rows. I wanted to mix the harshness of the popper buttons and the raw element of their design, set in pure gold, with the mesh of a delicate gold chain.

And so the collection L.24.03.10 was born.

Nadege Winter