Contemporizing Traditional Jewelry

Many people, jewelry designers among them, draw inspiration from traditional jewelry styles. The common inspirational thread here is a feeling of connectedness, coupled with a desire to feel connected. But the core issue for jewelry designers today, striving to achieve jewelry which is more contemporary than merely a replay or reworking of traditional preferences and styles, is how to contemporize it—that is, how to construct ideas into objects, challenge history and culture, produce that which is in opposition to standardization and monotony. Contemporizing traditional jewelry has to do with how designers take particular traditional forms and techniques and add in their personal style as well as make them more relevant to today’s sense of fashion, style, and individuality or personal expression. The challenge for the designer, when contemporizing traditional jewelry, is how to marry personal artistic intent with traditional ideas, keeping the jewelry design essential and alive for today’s audience.