Honorable mention

Designer: Roland Auer

Judges quote:

"A gorgeous piece with excellent execution in T-Splines. Very impressed with the soft, fabric-like look the designer was able to achieve. The designer also sent detailed explanations showing how the piece would be manufactured."

Butterfly brooch

Thinking about brooches - jewellery that is made to wearing on fabrics - I think about precious, shiny and hard materials. Brooches are made to give the person wearing it and also the pieces they are sitting on an interesting nice specialty.

Watching my wife sewing a handbag, I thought - wouldn't it be nice to let jewelery come a little closer to textile and try to find a little match? I wanted to let hard materials appear soft as if they would be a part of the things they are sitting on. I wanted to sew the gems into their settings and let the whole piece appear smooth and inclusive. I like to use mother of pearl and similar materials instead of gold from time to time because it looks bright, non-technical and weights about one tenth of the same piece in gold. This is great for big parts that should not be too heavy for wearing them on fabric. You cannot meld, weld or bend mother of pearl but you can cut it by hand or with a CNC cutting-machine and it is not easily breakable. with this in mind, I started constructing a butterfly.

Roland Auer

Read more about Roland's Butterfly brooch complete with additional pictures and description of his model.