Editor’s Note
This article highlights a new initiative aiming to foster sustainable innovation in the jewelry industry. The Kering Generation Award X Jewelry seeks to engage a global community of emerging talents around the theme “Second Chance, First Choice,” promoting creativity and ethical practices within the sector.
This is a revolution aimed at making the jewelry sector ever more creative and virtuous: the French group is launching the Kering Generation Award X Jewelry, a prize dedicated to sustainable innovation in the jewelry sector. The goal is to unite a community of students and start-uppers from around the world (Italy, USA, Singapore…), sincerely committed to moving the lines of this industry. The chosen theme is: “Second Chance, First Choice.” The prize thus encourages students and start-ups to demonstrate creativity in reinventing the notion of “waste,” and to transform recycled materials into a resource and even into a valuable piece of jewelry.
This concept of circularity is inspired by the work already carried out for several years by the teams at the House of Boucheron, driven by its artistic director Claire Choisne and CEO Hélène Poulit-Duquesne. In 2022, Claire Choisne used Cofalit, a material obtained by upcycling industrial waste. Many months of research were required to make it a material worthy of the excellence requirements of the Place Vendôme house.
The scientific coordination of this prize is provided by Poli Design, a leading Italian university in architecture and design.
Among the jury members: the CEO of Kering, François-Henri Pinault, Marie-Claire Daveu, and the three CEOs of Kering’s jewelry houses (Boucheron, Pomellato, Qeelin).
The Kering Generation Award X Jewelry has just rewarded not one but two winners at the JCK Show in Las Vegas in early June, the international jewelry trade show: one student, the other a start-upper. Harmonizing beauty and ethics, to invent the jewelry of tomorrow.
The young woman conceived a collection using leather scraps from the jang-gu, a traditional Korean percussion instrument. A very poetic new cycle aimed at preserving a cultural practice by reinventing it.
Ianyan highlights fractured opals and rare, forgotten stones, often overlooked in jewelry. By choosing the beauty of imperfection and accident, this start-up literally promotes the circular economy: each piece is designed as a sublime repair.