One to Watch: Jewelry Designer Jessica Dance

UK-based designer Jessica Dance isn't your traditional jewelry designer. An accomplished set, prop and installation artist, Dance is about as vivacious a creative talent as her surname suggests. In her downtime between designing windows, installations, ad campaigns and props for the likes of English luxury brands like Selfridges and Mulberry, Dance creates her eponymous jewelry collection using everything from hand-woven angora wool to stuffed "plushie" necklaces. The real mystery, of course, is where she finds the time to do it all.

"Originally, I wanted to be a vet," says Jessica. "But I realized I wasn't cut out for the emotional turmoil." Nonetheless, the animal kingdom still finds its way into every aspect of Jessica's work, most memorably her "Couture Creature" collection, for which she won the prestigious Per Aquum Creative Marketing Award. To promote the collection, Dance designed a stop-frame animation, photoshoot, window display, and installation within Selfriges—all on her own. @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } "I really enjoy blurring the boundaries between different creative processes," explains Dance.

Dance's infinite imagination is fueled by the world of literature and "especially vintage craft books, the 1970's and 1980's are my favorite craft book era." With such a playful sense of fashion, fans might be surprised to learn that Dance's personal taste in jewelry in comparitively restrained. "I always wear my mum's wedding ring, a simple and understated gold band."

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