Ever since its birth, Left & Right has been committed to crafting stories and memories into jewellery. Each piece of jewellery goes through a process of conscious decisions on the materials, aesthetic presentation as well as the impact on our environment and the user. It translates the intangible into beauty encompassed by gems and metals to be worn. They impress with their eye for detail and the insistence on only delivering the best.
Based in Malaysia and founded by Eileen and Fabian, they share with B-side their best practise and what makes a good piece of jewellery.
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Tell us more about Left & Right.
Left & Right exist as a story teller in honouring our client’s sentimental journey by giving them a voice to be heard, creating meaningful piece to truly represent our wearer in the times to come. The name is inspired by the marriage between the logical left brain with the creative right brain, simply putting sensibility into creativity.
This concept is emphasis in how we translate the story of our wearer into the wearable art pieces via the form, texture, pattern, flow with uncompromising quality and craftsmanship in order to capture the emotional elements.
Walk us through your jewellery making process.
For ready to wear pieces, we always start with the story that we can to share for the collection. We capture the essence of the story and translate to the essence of element that breathe through the pieces that we design. From the drawing board to the bench, there will be at least a month of prototype making and iteration for the piece to be aesthetically pleasing, detailed and practical. Once the master is crafted, master mold will be made and pieces will be casted in sterling silver or gold. The casted piece will be polished and fine finished before ever so carefully setting in the gemstone. This is similar with our bespoke pieces, the only difference is that for bespoke pieces, our client will be their own story teller and we are a mere listener at their service to honour their story.
What, in your opinion, makes a good jewellery piece.
Jewellery is a very personal expression and intimate conversation between people. Hence in our opinion, a good piece of jewellery is to be able to represent the wearer in the present time and even in years to come. Design wise, it is to show the wearer’s style as style is more timeless than trend; it is the wearer’s identity in the sea of people. The quality and craftsmanship is to provide confident to the wearer that the jewellery piece is good to be worn for as frequent and as long as they want, even to be passed on to their next generation. Most importantly, it is the meaning behind the jewellery. This is an intangible element, a soul that the brand, jeweller, craftsmen and the wearer entails into the piece.
Is there an artisan jewellery scene in Malaysia with focus on craftsmanship? What are your hopes and aspirations for Left & Right and for the scene?
Artisan and fine jewellery scene does have a higher entry barrier naturally. This is due to the requirement of branding, specific knowledge in jewellery crafting and gemstones, cost, market accessibility. We do see that there is growing interest in the market to demand for a purposeful jewellery with attention to detail on craftsmanship as well. This is a very positive phenomenon as this allow the brands in the market to grow together with the customer expectation. We hope Left & Right can continue to bring surprises to our target clientele and to create pieces and experiences that will leave an impact.
What are the proudest jewellery that you have created and why? And what do you want to create next?
It is rather difficult to pinpoint the proudest jewellery as we do see how our creation (both ready to wear and bespoke) impact our wearer at different point. We have experienced client who have bought our ready to wear pieces sending heartfelt text to us that how the piece has provide strength and comfort to them at hard times and the story of the piece continue to touch them and inspire them. We have also have the privilege to craft many of the bespoke piece where our client share with us their most intimate story that made us humbled to have that amount of trust that is beyond just jeweller and client relationship but rather like a very close friend. We have experience the raw form of human emotion, seeing our client’s joy and tears as they share the story. The story lives on in us as we design and craft the piece. When the piece is presented to our client or their recipient, we have had heard how meaningful the piece is to represent their journey. For Left & Right, we want to create the moments and emotions for our client beyond wearable art and hence we are looking at how we can make a difference and impact through the brand’s outreach and through the experience that we can create.