Liv Luttrell is one of the hottest new names on the contemporary jewellery design scene in London, and her bold sculptural designs make it easy to see why she is whipping up such a fervour.

Inspired by her abstract painter grandmother, Liv has a love of form that borders on the obsessive. This sensuous approach to design shows itself in the bulging curves and sweeping lines of her gold jewellery.

One of Liv’s 2020 highlights was a collaboration with sustainable peridot miner Fuli Gemstones, with the designer setting a large peridot at the centre of her Spear Tip ring. As we move into a bold new year, we caught up with Liv Luttrell to find about more about the collaboration, what drives her as a designer and how her sustainable jewels are made.

Tell us about your brand.

“In my design studio, we conceive each piece of jewellery as a piece of art, creating bold sculptural pieces and bespoke projects that are designed with private clients. Every piece is handmade by my team of expert goldsmiths here in London and around the UK, with a real focus on amazing traditional craftsmanship and using the finest responsibly sourced materials.”

What inspires you?

“Developing a design is a sensual process which grows organically from an original inspiration, which I find in so many places. I am particularly inspired by the lines, shapes and shadows created by great architects like Oscar Niemeyer and masters of abstraction like Beverly Pepper. I am constantly absorbing the feelings, shapes, movement and textures of things that you can’t necessarily gather or photograph, but that influence my mood and the tone of my ideas. During this process, I make a lot of fast-flowing sketches which start to bring together structures and forms, which I then explore by hand making maquettes, and the final refined design then gets translated into technical drawings and hand paint-ups.”

What made you want to become a jewellery designer?

“Before jewellery, my focus was fine art and sculpture. My grandmother is a very strong abstract painter, so I grew up surrounded with a real connection to form and the importance of following your intuition to make a shape, which is very much how I work now. My focus was always more three dimensional. Briefly working in an artistic forge in my late teens where the craftsmen created massive metal structures, I started to develop my love of skilled metalwork for which I found expression later when I studied goldsmithing. Art school was my first experience of creating a piece of conceptual jewellery. I love the balance of freedom to develop a shape as though it is a sculpture and the discipline of honing and refining it to fit on the body and function as a piece of wearable design.”

How are your jewels made?

“Hand craftsmanship is central to how I work; every design is handmade by my team, many of whom are from [long lines of] of goldsmiths here in London and around the UK.  I love the almost meditative process that goes into hand making, the many hours of forming, filing, polishing and experimenting with how to achieve contemporary shapes using very traditional techniques. Each design is a real celebration of the craftspeople who painstakingly realise it and the responsibly sourced materials which go into it.”

Tell us about the ring you made in collaboration with Fuli Gemstones.

“Collaborating with Fuli Gemstones was a really dynamic process that started with sourcing the perfect peridot for this project. We found a particularly vibrant 3.94ct oval [peridot] which really caught my imagination and led me to focus on one of my classic Edition designs – the Spear Tip ring. The shape is always heavily influenced by the stone that we are setting and I tailor the curves and volumes of the setting and proportion of the ring to create a one-of-a-kind design tailored to each stone. The final piece is a very bold and curvaceous shape that sits elegantly on the little finger and is handmade in responsibly sourced 18ct yellow gold. Working with responsibly sourced materials is central to my practice so it was really exciting to work with a Fuli Gemstones peridot from such a uniquely transparent supply chain. Reimagining one of my classic Edition [jewellery designs] led me perfectly into the official launch of a series of Liv Luttrell Editions this October. These new pieces have all the same bold dynamism and unapologetic sensuality as the peridot Spear Tip ring and I am very excited to present them.”

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