The designer Shahar Livne has drawn on her research into materials to create bracelets, earrings and rings, with a fossilized appearance, for the French house Balenciaga.

By Ludmilla Intravaia 

In this article : 

• Shahar Livne X Balenciaga jewelry 

• Shahar Livne, conceptual materials designer 

• Shahar Livne's Metamorphism Project 

• The plastiglomerates of the Anthropocene era 

• 3D printed recycled plastic jewelry 

On December 6, Balenciaga released its Fall-Winter 2021-2022 collection in the form of a video game, Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow, whose characters are dressed in the creations of its artistic director Demna Gvasalia (more info in this Boudoir Numérique article). Afterworld players could therefore discover the clothes while playing in the game, but not only, because models, like the Brazilian Anita Pozzo who lends her features to one of the characters, also wear Balenciaga accessories, for instance jewelry.

As a matter of fact, the designer Shahar Livne was commissioned by the French house to create one of the jewelry lines of the collection, consisting of earrings, rings and bangles.

The aesthetic of the jewels of Shahar Livne, artist in conceptual materials, adapts to that imagined by Demna Gvasalia in his collection, namely, as the press release of the designer reports, a universe "in which clothing is meant to transform over many years and can be worn for decades or reused forever”.

The aging process of materials being the aesthetic sought after by Balencianga's accessories department, Shahar Livne drew on one of his ongoing research projects, which began in 2017: “Metamorphism”.

In Metamorphism, the designer "speculates on a future in which plastic waste further permeates the earth’s surface and one day blend with natural matter", she explains on her website, adding: "It will become an entirely new valuable and precious resource that, like petroleum nowadays, we will mine in the future.”

Metamorphism refers to "plastiglomerates" or "plastic rocks", materials composed of fragments of rocks and plastics, resulting from human activity. This type of material, debris from fishing nets or plastic bottles, cemented by grains of sand, was first observed in 2006 on a beach in Hawaii. They may be born, for example, from a campfire into which plastic objects were thrown which, heated by the flames, merged with sand, stones and other materials present on the spot. These plastiglomerates are an illustration of the pollution generated in the environment by the human presence, in the Anthropocene era (the era of humans), our epoch in the history of Earth, where human activities now have a significant impact on Earth's ecosystem. In her Metamorphism project, Shahar Livne transformed plastic into "Lithoplast", a speculative material of her invention, which she works like clay, in design pieces. Her goal: to make the public think about how plastic could be used, in a future where it is no longer produced, as a new resource extractable only in nature, in a hybrid form, similar to that of plastiglomerates (images below : ©Shahar Livne).

Building on this concept, the designer signed her jewelry line, made from plastic recycled from ocean debris, recovered and cleaned by the American marketplace for sustainable materials Oceanworks. The plastic is combined with calcium carbonate, a residue from the marble industry.

The design of the jewelry, a ring, three bangles and two pairs of earrings, in black and white, is inspired by vintage jewelry shapes from the Balenciaga collections. Shahar Livne gave the fossilized, aged look to the base pieces which were then 3D scanned and 3D printed for a limited edition line, available from May 2021, in stores and on the website of Balenciaga (images below : ©Balenciaga).

Below, the jewelry worn by the characters from the Balenciaga collection (images : ©Balenciaga).

Below, the Brazilian model Anita Pozzo wearing Shahar Livne’s earrings in Balenciaga's video game, Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow.

Anita Pozzo with the earrings, behind the scenes of the Afterworld shoot.

* More info on Shahar Livne's website.

* Discover Balenciaga's Fall 2021 collection on the brand's official website.

* The Oceanworks website is here.

* Continue reading on Balenciaga with these Boudoir Numérique papers :  

- Discover Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow, the video game of Balenciaga

- Paris FWSS20 : Balenciaga sunglasses with leds logo

- Balenciaga SS20 campaign : models are making the (virtual) news

- Lifelike 3D mannequin in Balenciaga’s Parisian Store

- “Pretty fashion pictures are not enough anymore” (interview of Jean-Pierre Attal, french photographer of Balenciaga fall 2019 campaign)

- “Balenciaga under tech influence”

- “Cardi B, Lady Gaga and Dita Von Teese : all 3D fashionistas”