Between utility and intimacy.
The contemporary jewelry field occupies a liminal space; straddling the realms of applied art, design, and industrial production. This dual positioning generates both creative potential and disciplinary ambiguity. While traditionally associated with adornment and craft, jewelry increasingly assumes a conceptual and material complexity that reflects industrial aesthetics and design logics.
In the 20th century, especially with the influence of the Bauhaus and other modernist movements, there emerged an emphasis on rational forms and the functionality of designed objects. Jewelry, too, was affected by this shift. Instead of being solely decorative, it began to be understood as a design object, subject to principles of serial production, material experimentation, and ergonomic consideration (Dormer, 1994).
Unlike unique art objects, industrial design products are often evaluated based on their reproducibility, usability, and systemic integration into daily life. Jewelry that engages industrial paradigms, through techniques like casting, laser cutting, or CNC machining; mirrors this logic. As Raphaëlle Ziemba notes, industrial jewelry challenges “traditional notions of craftsmanship by embedding the logics of mass production into the language of the body” (Ziemba, 2019).
However, this shift does not negate the symbolic, emotive, or cultural value of jewelry. Rather, it allows these dimensions to emerge within new material frameworks. The artist or designer who utilizes industrial techniques does not necessarily abandon artistic intention. Instead, they participate in what Peter Dormer (1994) calls “a redefinition of craft” where the hand and the machine co-constitute form.
Moreover, the wearability of jewelry adds another layer of complexity. Unlike static industrial objects, jewelry operates through interaction with the human body. Its function is not only mechanical or ergonomic, but social and semiotic. As Bernhard Schobinger argued, “the meaning of a piece of jewelry is completed only in its wearing” (Schobinger, 2003).
Thus, jewelry as an industrial object is not a negation of ornament but a reconfiguration of it, one that attends to repetition, standardization, and material logic while still engaging with the intimate and symbolic realms traditionally associated with adornment.
References
- Dormer, P. (1994). The Art of the Maker: Skill and its Meaning in Art, Craft and Design. Thames and Hudson.
- Ziemba, R. (2019). “Serial Forms: Industrial Jewelry and the Body.” Design Issues, Vol. 35, No. 4.
- Schobinger, B. (2003). Jewellery and Meaning. In: Peter Skubic (Ed.), Thinking Jewellery. Arnoldsche Art Publishers.
