Synthetic style: A new look from man-made material

In the piece, entitled Compound Interest, writer Kassia St Clair and photographer David Newton profile a series of jewellers using synthetic materials such as polymers, alloys and acrylics to create rings, bracelets and necklaces that are explorations of form, creating new colours and shapes that may not have been possible with natural materials alone.

‘Our idea is always to find something new that has never been used in jewellery before,’ Fawaz Gruosi, founder of Swiss jewellery house De Grisogono, told Intelligent Life. He uses black nanoceramic to add a tough aesthetic to his precious stones.

The combination of forms using synthetic and natural materials to create a new luxury material is a consequence of Re-enlightenment Rising, our macrotrend in which we predicted that the convergence of art and science would result in new technologies and products.