Total Insta gold
Words by Tanya Philipson and Lottie Franklin
'Beautiful forces of nature' served as the season’s muses for Francesco Terzo and Filippo Ficarelli, the two Italians heading PANDORA’s product design team since 2016.
For SS18, they're introducing Shine, a collection of delicate 18k gold-plated sterling silver, in the shape of golden bees, honeycomb and the sun, making us dream of summer.
Here, the creative duo reveal all the project, and who they'd love to see wearing their jewellery.
Why do you think women love jewellery?
[Filippo] With jewellery, a woman can find something that adds value to her sense of self, something that can be a statement, which can empower. For us, fashion, like jewellery, is the singular world where you can add personality and personal touches, giving a woman more opportunity to express her personality, who she is, and be more creative. Because, in the end, wearing a ring on a different finger is a touch of creativity… there is choice! We want to inspire our woman to feel creative, to feel good.
Who do you think the Pandora woman is?
[Filippo] The Pandora woman is contemporary, modern. She can be fragile, but she can be super strong. A woman’s place in society now is really inspiring for us. We really want to draw parallels between this sense of beauty, nature, and flowers.
[Francesco] If you’re a Pandora woman you can wear just a white t-shirt and jeans with your jewellery and you can decide your personality. You can tell a story.
There are lot of nature references in the new Pandora collection. Tell us more about that…
[Filippo] Yes, we have our bee symbol, which tells a story. It conveys a sense of royalty, symbolism, passion, performance, and networking together. So we work around this story, how these values are important to Pandora and also how the bee can be interesting as a jewellery icon, because at the end of the day the bee is a jewellery icon in history.
We also worked together on the idea of the sun. The sun really is something personal. When you feel the rays of light in the spring, it gives you a different kind of energy. You can say the winter is going and you’re coming into spring. It’s a kind of emotion and we try to convey this kind of feeling into the collections.
How did you decide to work together?
[Filippo] Straight away we felt as though we knew each other very well. We’ve always felt we have the same way of seeing things. We’ve always both felt that we could work really well together. And it’s been great to both grow together and to build on our experience. Working as a creative duo has been really, really important for our careers. Our focus has always been on jewellery and accessories – bags, textiles, and materials. We’ve had an eclectic career!
Tell us about how you work as a design duo…
[Francesco] We are very complementary. Sometimes someone can be very creative and free to create, and the other more structural. But, in any case, we both work on the creative parts. We fight for sure, but when we make a decision it’s because we agree.
[Filippo] We’ve endured a lot together! We can spread the stress of everything. We can be super strong as a duo. And when we both design, two heads are better than one!
Which other designers do you admire?
[Filippo] A few big designers inspire us. I’d say we prefer the approach to creativity, rather than the design. We like the approach to creativity of Raf Simons. We are similar because we are really structural. We create mood boards. We like to work in a team. And we like to create in a team.
Our favourite designer who influences our creativity is Saint Laurent, because he really likes the passion of creating. He likes creating something different, mixing things together; like the art, and the people, and the street. How he looks at people – that’s super influential for us.
[Francesco] And also Karl Lagerfeld. What he is doing for Chanel is incredible. He is like a curator. Every season, everything looks cool and super contemporary. I think that for jewellery, something that’s very important to us is that we don’t focus a lot on trends. We are concentrating on our DNA, our thoughts, and moving in a contemporary way.
Who’s your style icon?
[Filippo] From the beginning it’s always been Wallis Simpson. But sometimes we like to mix inspiration from Wallis Simpson to say Jane Birkin. The idea of mixing the two together is really, really fun! We understand the two vibes, the style, how it brings the jewellery together.
Looking to the present, beauty like Kristen Stewart’s is interesting. It’s a beauty that is contemporary and has that girl ‘next door’ vibe but with a coolness. It’s a beauty where a woman can simply add a jacket or a bracelet and they’re good to go.
I also love older ladies! The TV series called Feud with Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange that’s about Joan Crawford and Bette Davis? It’s amazing. They are super wow! Fireworks!
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