Kyo Hashimoto Seduces the Bowerbird
Alexandra Savvides
The humble bowerbird may seem like an innocuous creature, but for jewellery designer Kyo Hashimoto its meticulously constructed nest provided a wealth of inspiration for her latest collection Seducing the Bowerbird.
“Once, when I was in high school, I went on a geography excursion to New England National Park, and we came cross a Satin Bowerbird nest”, she says. “The bird had collected many strikingly blue coloured objects and arranged them carefully around its bower nest. As soon as I remembered about the Bowerbird, I thought to myself ‘that’s something like how I designed this collection’.”
Hashimoto, now based in the
“I think adding a very natural looking element to my designs is interesting…I’m now making reversible necklaces – wood on one side and acrylic on the other. I like the contradictions and the flexibility that you can choose a side and match it to the clothes you’re wearing”, she says.
Over a period of six months, Hashimoto refines her designs from rudimentary sketches to fully-fledged, wearable designs in wood, acrylic and silver. She is implicitly aware of the beauty in hand-made objects, as both her parents are ceramicists.
As a result she hand-carves, rivets and polishes many of her pieces rather than letting a machine make them from start to finish. “My passion has always been art – I’ve always enjoyed making things with my hands… Nothing I produce is completely machine made”, she says.
“I try to breathe life into a piece of jewellery, because I want whoever owns it to have it for life, and not just for one season.”
With such a mentality underpinning her designs, Hashimoto’s jewellery is sure to stand the test of time.
