In early December, the jewellery design contest results were summed up and the winners of the contest were announced; for a decade, this contest has served as the platform for the popularization of the designers’ projects of the Russian jewelers as well as for the promotion of jewellery art into the foreign markets. Only new jewellery items awarded at the professional contests held in Russia and the post-Soviet countries are displayed at the Moscow international contest Russian Diamond Line 2018 (RDL). The RDL prize winners regularly become the winners in the world contests and are ranked high at the leading exhibitions. Next year, the exhibition expositions in the Russian national pavilions in Hong Kong and the USA will be based on our top brands.
The “Sea Star” earrings from the “Microcosm” Collection. Dmitry Belman.
Traditionally, the international jury consisting of the experts from Russia, France, the USA and Poland, choose up to 10 works in each of the two contest nominations. In the ‘Exclusive’ nomination, the ‘Drop of Contention’ brooch by Andrey Mikhailov (Moscow), the ‘Stump with Shoots’ brooch by Vladimir Markin (Moscow), the ‘Peony’ brooch by Nikolai Romanov (Nizhny Tagil), the ‘Harlequin’ ring by Igor and Maria Badovs (Moscow), the ‘Frog at the Dancing Party’ ring by Anna Matveyeva (Moscow), the ‘Bouquet’ set by the Bagiryan Jewelry Moscow brand, and the ‘Fish’ pendant from the ‘Fairy-tales by Pushkin’ collection by Galina Konyayeva (Voronezh) were announced as the best pieces.
The “Drop of Contention” brooch. Andrey Mikhailov.
The ‘Lotus’ ring by Larissa Zolotova (St. Petersburg), the earrings and ring from the collection ‘Treasures of the Shipwreck’ by LEO TOTTI (Togliatti), the ‘Remembrance…Eden’ ring by Andrey Chiryev (Yaroslavl), the ‘Fern’s Mystery’ earrings by Alina Andreyeva (Moscow), the ‘Marine Fantasy’ bracelet (CHEKOTIN, Moscow), and the ‘Sea Voyage’ ring by Almaz-Holding (Moscow) became the prize winners in the ‘Golden Series’.
The ‘Fern’s Mystery’ earrings. Alina Andreyeva.
The ‘Microcosm’ collection by Dmitry Belman was awarded the Grand Prix of the Russian Diamond Line 2018 for the innovation in the granulation technique. According to the jeweler, this achievement was the result of his 20-year efforts. “All this time, I studied the works of the Greek-Mycenaean culture, the Etruscan art - and for me, it is, first of all, an intriguing aesthetic symbol and deep philosophy, the microcosm. However, my goal was not to restore the lost jewellery technique but to offer the contemporary edge to it, as well as the sculpturesqueness and volume. The principle difference between my granulation technique and the traditional one is the creation of the volume microforms in a jewellery piece – a kind of microsculptures where each bead-granule of 0.15 to 0.30 mm in diameter is ideally round, perfectly polished and has an individual setting. Such ‘individual’ setting of each bead allows the creation of ideally clear, airy and a jour forms, geometric and fancy, as if flying ones. There are from 73 to 95 granules in each microsculpture and totally, 120 microsculptures have 7,600 granules. The further development of my designer technique was the use of precious stones in these microsculptures.”
The “Fish” Pendant. Galina Konyayeva.
Taking part in the popular creative contest is critical to all the jewellery market players as the RDL prize winners not only demonstrate their achievements in design and technologies but also set trends for the development of the national jewellery industry for some years in future. After the Award Ceremony that will be held within the framework of the Hands of Gold of Russia exhibition (Gostiny Dvor, December 14-16), the contest prize winners will take part in the International Jewellery Design Excellence Award-2019, the results of which will be announced in Hong Kong on March 2, 2019.
