Applied Product Development: Affinity Bridal Jewelry for Collette Dinnigan

This past quarter I worked on a group project for my Applied Product Development class. We were required to create a diffusion line for a brand and create samples of each piece along with marketing material and technical packages. I was incredibly lucky to have worked with three amazing Fashion Marketing and Management members to pull all of this together.

Our group decided to create bridal jewelry for Collette Dinnigan's bridal line. The idea is to create statement pieces for bridalwear in which the center pieces and pendants may be taken out and kept or exchanged as heirlooms.

The theme for the Spring/Summer 2012 line is called Garden of Faerie Tales consisting, of course, of floral and enchanting motifs. The design echos the brambles, thickets, and faerie dust from these magical tales we grew up with. 

The design consisted of wire wrapping techniques strung with Swarovski Crystals.  We had the good fortune of sitting down with my group member's mother, jewelry maker, Vana Lynn, and getting some advice and tips on how to get started on basic techniques.  We met up at her place for about three weeks in the quarter to work and plan our presentation for our final.

(Click to enlarge!)

While the samples incorporated lots of color, we've also made it an option to keep the designs monochromatic for the brides who want a more traditional feel of simply white crystals on silver wire.

We had a photoshoot session with photographer Dan Novakovich to create editorials for the pieces. Here are a few examples:

Looking back, I have never done jewelry of this caliber before. Of course, I have dabbled in the art for a little while without much progress but this was quite an experience.  I really enjoyed making the jewelry and seeing it progress from concept to completion.  Like a lot of detail work, it produced numerous broken nails and sore fingers, but it was well worth it in the end. It was also somewhat relaxing wrapping wire, kind of like the feeling one would get when knitting.  There was a certain sculpting aspect which I enjoyed very much as I learned to manipulate each gauge of wire into the desired shapes.  Overall, it was a rewarding experience. The class itself was very open and left us to manage our own time, progress, and overall product.  We all worked extremely well together and was able to meet various times outside of class throughout the quarter to get things done.

Here is our display table for our final presentation:

Xoxo,