Bringing the Past to the Future:
Meet the Jewellery Studio that Merges Sci-Fi with Ancient Mythology
In pursuit of probing into the art of jewellery-making, Kiki Karayiannis, a Goldsmiths graduate with a BA in Fine Art and History of Art, relocated to Athens, Greece shortly after her studies, with a strong sense of purpose. What had originally begun as a simple project consisting of crafting ten pairs of earrings inspired by silhouettes from both science-fiction and ancient mythology, four years later, she transformed it into Vasiliki, a jewellery studio birthed by futuristic yet historical concepts.
Karayiannis never had an official background in jewellery design, however her knowledge of sculpture and ceramic-making played a fundamental role in her ability to pick it up quickly and in an out-of-the-ordinary fashion: “a crossover between something that’s primordial and archaic, and something quite futuristic”, she told AnOther Magazine. The local Athenians later gave her a helping hand in establishing the craft of jewellery-making as she dedicated her mornings to “waking up at 5am and going on the bus with loads of old Greek men to a proper kind of classical revival jewellery workshop.”
The designer’s vision has since gone far beyond what its first ten pairs of earrings, expanding into two full collections for each season on the fashion calendar, now available through the studio’s own website, as well as multibrand e-commerce sites, SSENSE, LN-CC, Hug, SET&SEKT, Dongliang, Taxidi Tinos and Moda Operandi. But while the number of her pieces has seen a change, each design remains true to their original inspiration. “I like reaching into these fictional narratives, these built worlds just an imagination away, where someone else explained the world before we had science. For example, the fact that the Aztecs thought that gold was the gods’ excrement. All these cheeky, funny things,” Karayiannis manifests, explaining a small snippet of the otherworldly brilliance to her artistry.
Her handcrafted pieces demonstrate her intricate ideas into beautifully asymmetrical and abstract masterpieces. Their ethereal disfigurement represents the Ancient Greek relics, delving deep into mythological roots. Karayiannis uses an old method called Lost Wax Carving, wherein the jewellery is modelled in recycled gold or silver from wax mould that is sculpted by hand. A core value of Vasiliki is its pledge to sustainability, as Karayiannis’ handmade domain of mythological sci-fi pieces is made up of a compact community of suppliers who are able to track the materials used all the way back to the original source, though she confesses: “It is difficult to find ethical sources, but I feel better buying something that’s beautiful but of no damage to the people doing it. As I hunt for these stones, I feel like I’m on an ethical mission video game.”
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