Our latest colourful collection focuses around unique recycled glass beads that we discovered during a sourcing trip to Ghana. Each bead is framed beautifully in gold-tone recycled brass by Anton & Benta at their home workshop in Nairobi, Kenya. We sat down with Head of Design and Co-Founder Amy to find out her inspiration behind these unique, eye-catching designs.
How did you discover these beautiful beads?
Bee found them on her trip to Ghana in 2018 and brought back some samples to show me. We both loved them!
How did you decide the best way to use each bead?
I wanted the beads to be the star of the show so the design process was about creating a casing or surround in brass to really set them off. It made sense that we kept production in Africa and transit between Ghana and Kenya was fairly straight forward for Bee to organise. I love Anton & Benta’s brass work in Kenya, it’s so simple and striking and provided the perfect juxtaposition for the colourful, irregular beads.
I noticed many of these pieces have names inspired by artists. Was traditional art a big inspiration for this collection?
I think it was more that the beads are like miniature pieces of artwork in themselves and reminiscent of work by artists such as Jackson Pollock with all the random splatters or Yves Klein with their intense shade of blue.
The rings in this collection are unlike anything i’ve ever seen before! How did you come up with the designs?
Anton and his team work really well with statement designs so I decided to play to their strengths and go bold! I was merely the ‘framer’ in the context of this collection, working in the medium if brass to highlight the real artwork, the beads themselves.
What is your favourite piece in this collection?
Ooh it’s really hard to choose but I love the pendulum collection. The earrings are so bright and swishy, they feel really glam to wear. The Pendulum Ring is a real statement piece and it’s also nice to play with as the bead spins round in its casting.
We just adore this colourful new collection and we really hope you do too. Which piece is on your wish list, let us know in the comments below! You can shop the full Recycled Glass Collection here.