Charlotte Emma Thompson’s collection portrays a feminine, dreamy atmospheric portfolio that shows the story of her collection, the individual inspiration and design process for each piece.
The concept of her graduate jewellery collection ‘Babygirl’ is a celebration of the strength in sisterhood. In a current world of strong male politics culture her project embodies femininity and girlhood with strength. The main inspiration/concept came purely from icons such as Chloe Sevigny, Tavi Gevinson and Solange along with Sofia Coppola’s film: The Virgin Suicides and Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s film: Mustang. Therefore, the customer was quite important and specific, being based around feminine young women and teenage girls. Charlotte chose the SS18 WGSN for trend: youth tonic for the collection and gradually got inspiration for colour and materials as she experimented in 3D and found naturally in soft pinks and rose gold with shimmering Swarovski crystals worked well.
The concept of her graduate jewellery collection ‘Babygirl’ is a celebration of the strength in sisterhood. In a current world of strong male politics culture her project embodies femininity and girlhood with strength. The main inspiration/concept came purely from icons such as Chloe Sevigny, Tavi Gevinson and Solange along with Sofia Coppola’s film: The Virgin Suicides and Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s film: Mustang. Therefore, the customer was quite important and specific, being based around feminine young women and teenage girls. Charlotte chose the SS18 WGSN for trend: youth tonic for the collection and gradually got inspiration for colour and materials as she experimented in 3D and found naturally in soft pinks and rose gold with shimmering Swarovski crystals worked well.
Charlotte’s illustrations are inky and delicate, usually drawing the icons wearing her jewellery designs while trying to keep a focus on the jewellery pieces and always using soft colour. She also draws over photographs and is heavily inspired by the illustrator, Marlene Dumas.
Much of her design development was done in 3D, Charlotte ended up with over 100 samples of all pieces that were carefully labelled and put into her technical file. She has a very free experimental way of working, which was then refined and made specific by technical drawings so she had the exact design and how to make each piece.
Also in design development, Charlotte goes through each piece and develops it individually one at a time. Once the first piece (the Kirsten Cuff) was completed, the further 6 pieces followed very quickly, then after the diffusions pieces easily came into place.
Charlotte’s designer research comes from galleries such as the V&A, the Welcome Collection, books and magazines such as Lula and puss puss, films Mustang and The Virgin Suicides, Instagram pages such as girl gaze, Rookie magazine website, events such as a talk with Molly Goddard at the V&A and interning at Simone Rocha and fine jewellery company Competed Works they influenced and inspired my collection. Along with researching designers like Rodarte, Gucci, Molly Goddard and Grace Wales Bonner.
