New Jewelry Taps into an Ancient Technique Older Than the Byzantine Empire

In the mid-1800s, Chinese-made cloisonné regained popularity and was frequently exported to the U.S Today, New York-based designer Chris Davies is refreshing the look, piece by piece, in his new Silk Road collection "Making is incredibly time-consuming," says Davies.

Davies' first encounter with cloisonné was through his grandmother, who traveled extensively in China and collected the designs herself Davies, who studied art history, religion, and ancient civilizations at Vassar, learned how to do cloisonné during a goldsmithing course at the Jewelry Art Institute in New York For his latest pieces, Davies uses hard-to-find antique cloisonné, much of which was made by artisans who have long since passed on.

Plus, Davies is sourcing examples with rare coloring, to add to their contemporary look "Some of the colors I'm using are extremely unusual, like lavender and these beautiful persimmon colors These are cloisonné colors that you really didn't find, even 40 years ago" Davies arranges the cloisonné alongside pearls, rubies, rainbow moonstones, jasper, and carnelian. Source