Work / Central Saint Martins, 2021
Modular flower brooches
My final-year collection: a declaration of love for modular design, made through flowers, acrylic, cast metal and the human instinct to shape a garden.
01 / The declaration
I wanted to make my love of modular design impossible to miss.
This collection was the conclusion of my time at Central Saint Martins. It brought together the two systems I kept returning to: the garden and the module.
I had also reached an acceptance of Dieter Rams's rules of good design. They gave me a discipline for deciding what belonged, what had a purpose and what could be removed. The result was not an exercise in minimalism. It was a way to make expressive objects behave with clarity.
02 / The garden
I love the garden because it is alive, but never entirely left alone.
A garden gives us beauty and also invites us to exercise dominion over it. We prune, train, cut, replant and arrange. We decide what grows together, what becomes a border and what deserves to be held at the centre.
I was interested in that tension: nature provides the language, then the gardener edits it into a personal version of beauty.
03 / The module
The wearer becomes the gardener.
The brooches try to recreate that same act through modularity. Flower heads and stems can be separated, recombined and worn in different arrangements.
The object is resolved, but not fixed. Its beauty depends partly on the person handling it—what they choose, what they remove and how they decide the final composition should live on the body.
04 / The construction
A natural form translated into a legible system.
The stems preserve the irregular form of branches in cast and patinated gilding metal. The flower heads were built from precisely cut layers of vivid acrylic, using line and transparency to create depth without pretending to be natural flowers.
Mechanical connections allow the parts to meet, separate and return in a new configuration. Every detail had to support the central idea: change should be possible, and the way to make that change should be understood.
- Observe
- Select
- Cast
- Cut
- Rearrange
05 / The finished objects
Not a copy of a flower. A way of behaving like a gardener.
The finished collection resolved as three wearable works. Each combines the irregular surface of cast branches with the brightness and precision of acrylic.
What mattered most was not simply that the brooches looked botanical. They had to let someone exercise taste, choice and control—to shape beauty to their own liking, then carry that decision on the body.
Private commissions
Begin with the reason for the object.
Bring the person, memory, transition or belief the piece needs to carry.