The Thousands

I got this really good feeling the first time I looked at Maripossa jewellery because straight away I knew exactly what it reminded me of. That’s Waterworld, post-apocalypse jewellery. People washing up on shores, seaweed tangled around their bodies. And then I read an email from the lady behind Maripossa, Lauren Besser, explaining her new range: “El Homenaje is a personal collection, paying tribute to past experiences and encounters with the unpredictability of nature’s elements.” SHUT. UP.

This instant recognition of a fashion or jewellery collection doesn’t come along all too often for me. Or, at least, when it does I’m just totally misconstruing the artist/designer’s intentions. But Lauren somehow communicates “nature’s destructive forces” via metal – and I think that’s very impressive. Maybe it’s because when she was a teenager she was caught smack bang in an earthquake, true story.

Though she’s competing on an international stage (Maripossa won Young Designer Award for Accessories at Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week last year), Lauren remains in her Melbourne studio painstakingly weaving and knitting fabric-like metals by hand. Her meshes are then adorned with a feature: cast sterling silver, natural earthen crystals, or some hand-painting and dip-dyeing for colour.