NOOR FARES: ON TOP OF THE WORLD
                             

The Lebanese jewellery designer Noor Fares, 27, is gaining a strong following for her sculptural fine-jewellery designs, which, though steeped in craft traditions, have a fresh, fashion sensibility. Raised and educated in Paris, she is now based in London, where she came to study gemmology and design. Here she reveals the things that inspire her, including her Middle Eastern heritage, mathematics and ancient spiritual motifs.

Geometry 101, my latest collection, is exactly that: basic geometry. I’ve created simple studs out of single cones or grouped them together so that they swish up the earlobe. At first the collection was made using only white and brown diamonds. The colour crept in when I went to India for Holi, the festival of colours. I was so inspired by what I saw that I created the Rainbow strand of the collection, using coloured sapphires to give each facet of a shape a different hue, for example on the 20 sides of my Icosagon pendant. Old lamps and antiques from flea markets played a big role in my research for this collection too. The Merkaba pendant is based on an old style of porch light, but the Merkaba star was originally an ancient motif symbolising harmony between mind, body and spirit.

I like to reference my Middle Eastern heritage in my work. I was raised in Paris, but my parents are Lebanese [Fares’ father was once the deputy prime minister of Lebanon] and I’ve always incorporated things like the evil eye into my jewellery, though in a subtle way. My first collection was called Touch Wood, which is a reference to the Middle Eastern tradition of knocking on wood for luck, and combined wood with gold, coloured stones, diamonds and hidden evil eyes. I got it stocked at Harrods when I was 23 after cold-calling the jewellery buyers and convincing them to take a chance on me. Now I’m stocked at Dover Street Market in London, on couturelab.com and at boutiques in New York, Dallas and Los Angeles, among others.