Baunat is a Belgian company that produces diamond jewelry. Together with Flanders Fashion Institute they organised a competion, the theme was "Unveiling inner beauty". The designers were free to choose which kind of jewelry they wanted to create. It just had to fit into the company philosophy, which is modern-classic and timeless. The materials that could be used were: yellow gold, platinum and white diamonds.

I took the theme of the competition literally as my starting point: I wanted to unveil something. That gave me the idea to look at Japanese packing designs for inspiration . I really adore them for the combination they hold of refinement and strong and sober lines.

I discovered the form of my centre-piece by combining an opened box and the basic characteristics of origami. The basic form is made out of platinum. The diamonds that are coming out give a warm and playfull feeling as opposed to the sober centre-piece. The name of this pendant is Natsu, that means 'born in summer' in Japanese. Here you can see my drawing. Here I've put a paper model of the centre-piece on top of the drawing, to make it more clear that it is three dimensional. The golden branches are lying flat against the skin.

I was invited for a meeting and they told me I made it to the final 5, but unfortunatly that's where it ended for me. I think I will continue working on this design to use it for a collection of my own.