This year, we have ventured out scouting the new independent designers from around the world. So take a look at a selection of our most interesting discoveries.

Alexia Gryllaki – Armed with a degree in Gemmology and Jewelry Design from The GIA in London, Athens-born Alexia spent the first three years of her career designing behind-the-scenes for luxury brands and at a high-end gemstone dealer in London’s Hatton Garden. While there, she also honed her skills testing and authenticating gemstones. Alexia then won the President’s International Design Award from the Cultured Pearl Association of America in November 2015. The design that bagged her the honors was a pair of earrings featuring a strip of diamond baguettes with upside down faceted diamonds on one side and pearl cabochons on the other. Alexia decided it was time to follow her passion and launched her eponymous line early last year.

Website: alexiagryllaki.com

Images Courtesy of Alexia Gryllaki

Loren Nicole – An archaeologist by profession, Loren worked at the American Museum of Natural History. Her role as textile conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC spurred her to study various mediums – weaving, ceramics. Later, she studied goldsmithing under master artisans in the city and nurtured her love for the craft. In 2014, she moved to California and began a new life as a goldsmith and jewelry designer. Working with socially responsible gemstone dealers, Loren crafts her pieces by hand in Venice (LA-California). She works with varied metal textures, sourcing her materials for her Babylon, Etruscan, Hellenes and Classic collections from mines that support ethical labor. The designer often draws upon granulation in her work – a 4,500-year-old technique rooted in Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean.

Website: loren-nicole.com

Images Courtesy of Loren Nicole

Panache by Sunyoung Cha - A graduate of Central Saint Martins in London, Sunyoung Cha launched Panache in 2008, with the brand name drawing upon the term ‘plume on a helmet.’ Cha cut her teeth in the industry designing fashion jewelry for Jonathan Saunders for his 2007 SS collection at the London Fashion Week. And she has also designed award-winning works, among which is featured an art medal housed in the British Museum. Informed by Cha’s love of the Middle Age armories and their working mechanism, her label marries Swarovski crystals with her whimsical imagination.

Website: pbypanache.com

Images Courtesy of Panache

Smitha Sadanandan