“Just like the process with my jewellery – I imagine the structure, aesthetics and look of a piece but until it’s created it’s hard to describe what I am seeing in my mind’s eye,” Inés Nieto.
Heptagon ring, white cacholong, rock crystal and white diamonds
When talking with Ines Nieto, a London-based Spanish designer, one can easily sense her love for Mediterranean warmth, its rich history and culture, and the deep connection with the blues of the Andalusian Sea and its sky and the heritage of whitewashed houses, which is transformed into her Art Deco-inspired jewellery designs. She designs and creates geometric, sculptural, yellow, and rose gold jewellery to empower women like in ancient Greek and Roman times. Her signature blue-green tourmaline, white cacholong, and rose gold geometric jewels infused a captivating tension and mesmerising glamour and beauty.
Ines's decision to move to London to do a master's in art business at Sotheby's Institute of Art has promised her life to settle in, meeting her now husband and becoming mum to two gorgeous children. After five years of art dealing, Ines has started her jewellery brand, 'Ines Nieto'. I spoke to Ines about her new Taura collection and discussed her fascination with the electric neon blue specimen Paraiba tourmaline and the white cacholong (it is a white opal associated with purity, love, and hope) and her aspiration behind her awe-inspiring jewellery. Her sweet childhood memories, escape to the seaside, and the heat of Mediterranean sunshine are boldly proportioned to Nieto's fashion-forward aspiration in her jewellery.
Brought up by the sea in Southern Spain Ines aims to capture the architecture of dazzling clusters of cube-shaped white houses perched on top of Andalusia's olive tree-studded mountains, the Pueblos Blancas, turquoise oceans, and sand of Andalusia evoke specifically in Paraiba tourmaline with white cacholong, a form of opal, in Ines’s signature jewels. It's evident that her Spanish roots are the main source of inspiration for her jewellery, each piece is hand-drawn by her in London and made in Geneva, Switzerland.
White Cube ring with 1980s Brazilian Paraiba
The first thing you notice from looking at Ines’s rings is the seductiveness of the neon blue and lagoon colour of Tourmaline Paraiba. Ines adds that she likes to use both, the green and blue tones of Paraiba which are reminiscent of her Mediterranean background, and the Alhambra blue tiles come to mind of Al Andalus, the part of medieval Islamic origins. The second thing I am most intrigued by is Ines's avant-garde and futuristic styles characterised by curving facades and sharp angles, and I resembled them in Zaha Hadid’s, the Mozart of Architecture, Queen of Curves, designs that are rational and created based solely on her imagination. Ines’s jewellery aren't just objects but true pieces of art, they look unusual to the human eye.
Ines Nieto's beautiful signature rings
Ines’s creative jewellery designs beautifully showcase different cuts of diamonds like portrait cuts, asschers, baguettes and rose cuts, and lines of micro-set diamonds. Especially, Taura necklaces, Spanish-infused signature designs that come with the shield of Bull portrait cut or Taura necklaces with natural oval Paraiba tourmaline with Bull horn shapes inspired by the ‘Gaucin bull run’, better known locally as the ‘Toro de Cuerda’ of Andalucía. Talking with Ines Nieto, I found out she’s upping her game by introducing fancy cut-shaped diamonds, specifically bull-cut-shaped stones. It’s wonderful to learn that Ines is ready to go big and make her presence abroad by introducing a collection that’s wearable and meaningful. It is her designs that start a conversation and that has a lasting first impression.
Taura Necklaces by Ines Nieto
Author: Shohista Turdiyeva.
We thank Ines Nieto for sponsoring this article.
