Pomellato’s Kintsugi collection brings the old Japanese technique of repairing broken ceramics with lacquer and gold dust to the upcycling of broken gemstones. Courtesy of Pomellato

Continuing our focus on sustainability in line with COP26, Torri Mundell explores how jewellery house Pomellato’s latest collection makes use of broken, upcycled stones

Vincenzo Castaldo. Photo by Angela Lo Priore

Sustainability and ethical practices are a constant challenge for the jewellery industry. On the one hand, customers want the most desirable products and are willing to pay what it takes, so jewellery very rarely ends up as landfill. On the other hand, the sector is beset by reports of unsustainable practices and labour scandals.

Pomellato, the Italian jeweller known for its whimsical and colourful creativity, has set up camp firmly on the ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) side of the jewellery industry. The company is part of Kering, the French luxury giant run by François-Henri Pinault which has long made a virtue of its ethical endeavours (it was the first luxury group to introduce an environmental profit & loss account and expects its brands to follow it).

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Vincenzo Castaldo, creative director of the brand, is at the heart of the company’s challenge: how to continue its trademark originality and freshness of design, while ensuring everything is produced via a supply chain strictly internally audited for its ESG credentials.

“With its timeless nature, a jewel carries the message of sustainability like nothing else,” says Castaldo. He says the pandemic has strengthened his customers’ resolve to shop more conscientiously. Fine jewellery is no longer simply about “the intrinsic value of materials and craftsmanship but about ethical and cultural values… The events we have recently experienced are addressing us to a more conscious luxury. Our clients are more and more interested in the story you are telling, the ‘behind the scenes’ narrative.”

A selection of pieces from the collection. Courtesy of Pomellato

Establishing supply chains for precious metals and gems is the industry’s biggest challenge. The chains are notoriously murky, mainly because raw materials often originate from some of the poorest places in the world and pass through many countries and hands – miners, cutters, refiners and dealers – before they arrive to market.

In 2018, five years after its acquisition by Kering, the Italian jewellers achieved 100 per cent responsible gold purchasing – valuable because gold-sculpted pieces set with colourful precious stones as well as bold, chunky chains have been central to the brand’s relaxed, modern aesthetic since its founding in 1967.

The atelier where the collection is made. Courtesy Pomellato

A selection of rings. Courtesy Pomellato

The market for coloured gemstones and diamonds is even less regulated than that of precious metals. The brand has been collaborating with the Responsible Jewellery Council to develop their network of diamond suppliers. Brokering a direct relationship with a mining company is another way to establish the provenance of gems: lapis lazuli stones sourced ethically from an artisanal mine in Chile were used in the brand’s earlier, made-to-order Denim Lapis Lazuli collection.

Read more: Two designers on sustainable luxury design

When it comes to design, Castaldo says, “the biggest challenge is to keep alive the conversation between creativity and sustainability.” The Kintsugi collection, using upcycled stones, benefits from a “cross pollination” between the two. Castaldo was inspired by his visit to Japan in 2019, where he became captivated by the tradition of reassembling broken objects with lacquer and decorating the original fracture with a seam of gold. “I was drawn to the elegance of Japanese thinking and the idea of something broken becoming more precious through this ritual of repairing,” Castaldo remembers.

Slightly flawed stones have been used by Castaldo in previous designs, but the Kintsugi collection showcases gems that are actually broken: damaged pieces of jet and kogolong which would normally be discarded. A female kintsugi artist repairs the gems in Tokyo before they are brought to Pomellato’s craftsmen in Milan; the collaboration yields minimalist rings, earrings and pendants that tell a story through the gold seams streaking across former cracks and fissures in the gems. “Each jewel is truly one of a kind,” he says, “and this, to me, is the real essence of preciousness.”

Kintsugi is an ancient craft, but for Castaldo, “the idea of celebrating your scars as a sign of strength through healing is a very contemporary philosophy”. So, too, is the movement to reorder our priorities and shop more conscientiously.

Find out more: pomellato.com

This article was originally published in the Autumn 2021 issue.

A ring design by Katherine James

Collector and dealer of modern, vintage and antique fine jewellery Katherine James runs her eponymous brand from her home in London. Here she talks to Abigail Hodges about social media, her experiences of working in traditionally male-dominated industry, and creating a nail varnish from crushed gemstones

Katherine James

1. Do you remember when you first became interested in gemstones?

I grew up in London in the eighties when the jewels were physically bigger, and they completely captivated me. My Dad was pretty terrible at buying presents, so he would give me jewels, and so I was hooked from a young age. I even used to sell mood rings at school. To this day I still get a funny feeling when I look at a beautiful gemstone – jewels draw me in like magnets.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

2. What made you want to deal jewellery and how did your business start?

In some ways, jewellery is like a sparkly bank account; buying it can feel guilt-free because you are investing. Jewellery is also a way to connect. A lot of people come to us when they have lost someone, and that doesn’t necessarily mean buying heavy Victorian mourning jewellery. I had a woman who wanted an aquamarine to match her deceased husband’s eyes. Jewellery is an object that can express a personal feeling, and it can represent important milestones in people’s lives. It’s wearable art that gets passed down through families.

The business started on Facebook and grew to Instagram with some persuasion from my kids. It is usually a male-dominated industry, whereby everyone is very matter-of-fact about things, but I was selling as I bought in, and it gave me the freedom to talk about how much I personally loved a piece. It grew and grew on Facebook, and we are now at about 15,000 people. Before it was heavily a female demographic, but we are now also dealing with male clients, which is very exciting!

3. What has your experience been like working in a traditionally male-dominated field?

The jewellery trade is a funny old place; it is a singular sort of profession. You don’t have a shop as you are mainly trying to source jewels, and as I have been social media-based, I tend to build a relationship with people very quickly, in a personal way.

Read more: Château Mouton Rothschild’s artistic collaboration with Xu Bing

It was initially daunting for me at the fairs. People always assumed that I was part of the public rather than a dealer. I am lot younger, and most of the people I deal with in the industry are men. It was necessary for me to be taken around and given an introduction, and it was from there that I was able to build relationships.

4. Do you think your position as a younger woman accounts for your online success?

A lot of the old guard don’t use the internet at all, and it is the kids that are taking social media on, and doing really well. Unfortunately, I have heard that recently quite a lot of the old trade has had to shut up shop. The internet is taking over, but at the same time, it gives women a safe space in the jewellery world. So you could argue that going forward, women are going to have an advantage over men in some ways. As a woman, I wouldn’t want a shop as you inevitably put yourself at risk; I don’t know anyone in the trade that hasn’t been robbed in some way.

5. Have you noticed any jewellery design trends emerging recently?

Yellow gold is coming back with a bang! Whilst there has certainly been a big demand for platinum in the modern day, it is almost impossible to work with as it has to be heated to such a high temperature. There is also a trend towards minimalism in terms of materials; contemporary consumers want the thing to be the thing that it says it is.

6. What’s next for you?

For years, my nails were always shocking because I couldn’t see beyond the ring I was wearing and so we decided to make a nail varnish. We are going to crush up gemstones and use them to make a nail varnish which also doesn’t chip. You can have nails to match your ring and vice versa. It also means you can get an emerald on every finger for way less than the price of an actual emerald. We are trying to recreate that magnetism that comes from being in the presence of a great gemstone, but with nail varnish.

View the collection: kjj.rocks