Jewellery designer Pia Farrugia was awarded a Masters of the Arts in fashion and accessory design award in 2014 at HEAD Genève. The award recognised her current collection, ‘Blooming Species’, which revolves around nature and human interaction with it. Pia is one out of four designers from HEAD Genève chosen to showcase her work at the CH-Talents: Visionaries exhibition as part of the 2015 International Fashion Showcase currently taking place during LFW.
Pia, nature plays an important part in your collection – what is it about it that first inspired you?
What inspires me in nature is firstly its sensorial aspect. We’ve all had this experience of opening our mailbox to find – to our surprise – amongst all the bills to pay and flyers, a beautiful postcard with a nice landscape, a beach, a mountain, a city. We enjoy looking at these images because they take us back to our own memories, our past experiences. When we look at a picture of a mountain, for example, we of course see the image that is being represented, but we also project ourselves mentally. It’s like an imaginary stroll; we observe this landscape from within; we look at a path, tree leaves, pebbles, insects, small branches on the floor, the moss full of humidity, but we also feel the smells, sounds, the fresh air, the wind.
Why did you pick natural geometry as your main focus?
In my project, I like to play with landscape, nature. I decompose, dissect and transform it, extracting elements to create new ones to take us back to a new reality – fantastic, perhaps even marvellous, magical and perhaps disturbing, absurd or displaced. I’m aiming to blend the barriers between true and false, real and unreal, creating through unexpected associations a decontextualisation, an illusion, a distortion of reality. Landscape for me is a mental reconstruction; everyone will recall their own memories, dreams, fantasies, ideals and project themselves into their own universe with my pieces.
BLOOMING SPECIES
Wandering about, I come across pebbles, twigs, pieces
of garbage. I pick them up and put them in my pocket.
At the workshop, the laboratory, these elements coupled
based on their affinity and likeness, a rock fitting
into the whole of a bough, a leaf holding on to the
remains of a climbing plant.
Intuition sparkles,
What if I leave them a little longer together?
I water them, compose them, cut one side, transplant
it to the other. Some grow better if placed next to some
others. How will this bud sprout if I plant it there?
What is it about jewellery design that fascinates you the most?
Jewellery design allows me to communicate, pass on messages, sensations, and tell stories. I see it as a platform to experiment, as a playground. I’m fascinated by textures, colours and brightness. In the making of each piece, I always feel like I’m inventing a new creature and always wonder what kind of life it will have. Who will wear it, what kind of relationship will they have, how will it grow? Because each piece of jewellery has a story and is charged with emotions.
How has HEAD helped change the way you look at fashion?
HEAD and particularly contemporary jewellery designers have opened up the doors to a creative world that had been unknown to me before. Most people who aren’t familiar with contemporary jewellery design couldn’t begin to imagine how much it has to offer, how rich it is. While I knew fashion from a ‘popular’ perspective beforehand, HEAD has taught me to create differently, to think in another way. I’m now much more familiar with the world of fashion; I will never stop learning and experimenting.
Fashion in London is very much influenced by nightlife, clubbing and streetwear. How is that different in Genève? What inspires fashion there?
On the one hand, fashion in Geneva is inspired by its cosmopolitan characteristics; it’s a city where people from all over the world live, which creates a huge amount of mixing and blending. It’s also inspired by its history in watch and clock-making, as well as by its geography. Geneva is surrounded by lakes and mountains, and we’re far from the rush of big cities such as Paris and London.
How would you define beauty?
Beauty is defined individually. I like to look for beauty where one would not expect it.
Still or sparkling?
Sparkling because it’s shiny.
Interview: Misha Skelly
CH Talents: Visionaries
Emerging Swiss Fashion Design
20-24 February 2015
Display Gallery
26 Holborn Viaduct
London
EC1A 2AT