This is an interview with the Luxembourg-based designer duo crafting handmade recycled gold and silver jewelry and homeware: Laôma Atelier. Laura and Martine, the designers (and sisters!) behind Laôma Atelier give us an insight into their world of artisan craftsmanship, the places around the world that shaped them, and their views on mindfulness and how it contributes to their ethos and making..
Laura and Martine: "Coming from a family of woodworkers, that is now in their 4th generation, we have always been interested in craftsmanship and materials. Our father passed his love for craft, nature and objects on to us.
We spent a lot of time in our parents’ carpentry when we were children, where we got to see the love and care that went into each piece of furniture.
Our father loves the stories around old objects so to this day he has been keeping old wooden doors, chairs and tables that people aim to throw away and he always tries to find a way to repurpose them in some way.
We have always been intrigued by craft and the artistry around jewelry and accessorizing. We have a multidisciplinary approach when it comes to creating. Using different art forms and blending them together helps us to have a unified artistic expression. Laura having a background in photography, helps us to fabricate a world around our jewelry pieces.
The manual process of crafting jewelry by hand is extremely meditative for us. Working with your hands brings a beautiful feeling of grounding and a sense of accomplishment.
Sculpting and carving the wax until its final form and seeing it transform into metal is a very fulfilling process. As jewelry making is a very long process, with many different steps, you can easily get lost in time when you immerse yourself in the process.
Lava Ring N°07 $204 (silver) $263 (gold)
We think that repetitive motion of hand gestures brings a state of peace and calmness that is similar to the feeling you experience in yoga. There is meditation and mindfulness through craft.
Working with both wax and metal, which are solids at room temperature but melt into a liquid when heated is very captivating. They can be soft and hard at the same time, one transforming into the other. This constant interplay between the two, makes it interesting to work with. You can find contrasting elements like fragility and strength and the fluidity of the material in most of our designs.
Olha wearing the Flow Earcuff Hoop $170
Every place we have lived, shaped us in a certain way. Berlin and Melbourne defined us on a more personal level as we lived there in our early twenties.
Coming from Luxembourg, which is a tiny country and always wanting to live in a bigger city, we felt a strong openness and a sense of belonging in Berlin. Melbourne and the people that we met over there made us reflect on the fact that you should do something in life that makes you feel fulfilled.
That was also the point where Laura started to take photography more serious.
Galet Bracelet $461 (silver) $531 (gold)
We went to many clubs and techno festivals / gatherings around that time, connecting with music and meeting lots of kind people. But for some time we felt a bit lost regarding our career choice as Luxembourg has very typical career paths.
So even coming from an artisan family and wanting to do something creative, it’s not a typical path most people follow. And in order to perfect a craft it takes years and dedicated effort to fully realize the ideas you have. In the end it brought us to Paris and we are happy we made that choice.
For us creating is more an intuitive process. We spend a lot of our time in our studio listening to music and experimenting with carving and fluidly sculpting the wax until it eventually evolves into the form we are satisfied with. We often start with a vague thought and idea behind but try to keep a spontaneity in the process. We like to let the material guide us and let it speak for itself. By approaching the process more fluidly it helps us to have a more creative outcome.
This is something we noticed when we were taking classes in New York. The teachers had a very different approach compared to Paris.
The school we did in Paris was very traditional and there was not much freedom in the way we could craft pieces. We often needed to have a concrete idea of the piece before we were allowed to start and we had to sit on one piece for hours. In New York they would let us work a lot more freely and they had a very open-minded and spontaneous approach. If you didn’t like a piece you were trying to make, they were not afraid to tell you to destroy it and then start again.
Angel wearing the Rebirth Earring $175 (single) $304 (pair)
Lucky Star Bangle $286 (silver) $344 (gold)
As the fast fashion and also fast jewelry market is growing, it is important to preserve the craft of handmade. We believe that traditional craft is tied to a cultural and artistic significance. We live in a world where products are so readily available at low prices most people have lost touch on what the production looks like. Even though there are more people talking about fast fashion, transparency within the jewelry industry is a big issue.
After the pandemic many people started their own business or brand with a lot of people going into jewelry without the requisite knowledge in the field. With the accessibility of ordering from factories of low-cost labor countries and the simplified process of wholesale platforms, we see a rise of smaller brands purchasing extremely low-priced pieces from these sites all while labelling the jewelry as ‘handmade’ and ‘sustainable’. This helps big factories expand at a very fast pace, encouraging mass-production and selling copied designs of jewelry designers and makers.
Disguising reselling as designing and handcrafting leaves customers confused about what they are actually buying. With misleading customers and using the same words as brands and artists that handcraft their pieces, they devalue the meaning and importance of true handmade artisanal craft. Speaking up against these practices and keeping our own environmental impact at a minimum is essential.
That’s why we choose durable precious metals, focus on where our materials come from and aim to produce as little waste as possible during our process. What we love most about working with silver and gold is that you can melt them down over and over again.
Vio wearing Lava Ring N°04 Ring $204 (silver) $263 (gold)
As the material will always go up in value, there is zero waste left, which makes jewelry circular. Crafting with intention, in small batches and made-to-order avoids overproduction of pieces and aligns with LAÔMA ATELIER’s core values."
Angel wearing the Rebirth Earring $175 (single) $304 (pair)
★★★Click here to shop Laoma Atelier's new silver and gold pieces ★★★
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