Srishti Shah’s collection aims to portray the ostentatious nature and various façades existing within the wealthy faction of society. The collection consists of a range of pieces, which represents this very idea that will sit in a fine jewellery context to further strengthen this concept. The vision of this topic began from her research on ‘Opulence’. She expanded this idea by focusing on how to represent the dominating essence of glamour by using precious materials.

Developing from my initial vision, she began focusing on ideas surrounding Opulence, in regards with theatres. As a result, the images of theatres from 1920s, at the height of the Art Deco Movement, greatly influenced the development of her work. Srishti looked at Opulence representing 20th century glamour through abstract methods to understand the masked, double faced identities of the wealthy: how a façade is put on when they are in the eyes of the public versus how they are in private. The double layered- stone setting is used as a representation of the differentiating identities wealth creates within oneself and is an attempt to depict the current state of society.

All the research led me to explore my ideas through simple forms and reflections of stones. This led me to experiment multiplying simple forms and understanding its impact. Stone reflections were explored by setting them on top of each other in a single setting. The experimentation of stone settings with Quartzes and Cubic Zirconia of different colour, shape and sizes had very successful reflections. The different samples took a transformative aspect, depending on the viewer’s point of view. This required me to think about whether it is the wearer or the viewer who should see the setting of the two stones, or whether it should be both or none.