Who: Joanne Guiraud is a Swiss jewellery designer and maker based in London, who celebrates sensuality and femininity and questions perception and the ways in which what you see is different from what you feel.
When: Guiraud obtained her master’s in jewellery & metal with distinction from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2018. Previously she completed several courses in jewellery design after having obtained her BA in visual communication from ECAL, Lausanne in 2010.
Her collection Hidden Feelings received the Theo Fennell best design & craftmanship award.
Where: Developing her jewellery design practice, Guiraud worked at Michelle Oh. She previously gained professional experience mainly as a graphic designer at Sang Bleu, Lausanne, Northskull, London, and Tank Form.
What: “Tickling / tension, pain / pinching, tickling / tension / restriction, strangulation / tension, massage / pressure”: these are not words normally used to describe jewellery. Yet that is the project of the jewellery designer Joanne Guiraud. The collection spans an array of physical sensations, which can be hidden or displayed as the wearer wishes. They range from gentle to more intrusive feelings, inviting a possible progression of one’s own perception.
Her pieces address the wearer of the jewellery in the most intimate way, touching, upending the general function attributed to jewellery of decorating, exhibiting or displaying wealth, taste, status or social function. Acquiring a jewel from the Hidden Feeling collection means entering into an unusual relationship with oneself.
The collection challenges the consumerist imperative of self-gratification by overtly addressing it. At the same time, it refers tacitly to the growing acceptance of extended sexual and sensual practices.
Why: “I want to create something that exists between the seen and the unseen, the private and the public, the real and the imagined.” (Joanne Guiraud)
