Contemporary Jewelry Design and Heritage Porcelain Come Together in a Chic New Collaboration

Since 1747, German brand Nymphenburg has been crafting exceptional porcelain tableware, figurines, and decorative pieces as well as objets d’art with famous collaborators like Damien Hirst, Michele Oka Doner, and Konstantin Grcic, among other notables. Their output resides in private collections as well as the holding of major institutions like The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Cooper Hewitt in New York and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Now, Nymphenburg has teamed up with New York jewelry designer Marla Aaron to reimagine her edgy carabiner-like bijoux with traditional porcelain accents. “I saw the pieces we could make so clearly on my initial visit to Nymphenburg,” says Aaron, who, in the moment, suggested renditions of her Lock, Trundle Lock bracelet, earrings, Depository ring holder in porcelain, and with mechanisms finished in gold.

Two years in the making, Aaron first met the Nynmphenburg team nearly 25 years ago during her previous career in marketing at American Express. “I remember becoming entranced by the story of this more than 300-year-old German porcelain company that still hand-paints their porcelain, set in a castle outside of Munich. They gave each of us a beautiful book about the company and a small piece of their porcelain as a gift for our time,” she recalls. Then, in 2017, she reconnected with the brand at her 47th Street atelier in New York. “That meeting turned into a later visit to the Nymphenburg workshops and it was there that I first saw the Cumberland dinnerware pattern ‘live’ and instantly understood how this intricate pattern would be stunning reimagined as jewelry.”

Dating back to 1765, the Cumberland pattern features an explosion of festive blooms in vibrant, summery shades enlivened with flittering butterflies, ladybugs, and other insects, the entire tableaux topped by a scalloped border traced in gold. “It is simply the most beautiful china pattern I’ve ever seen,” says Aaron. “Nymphenburg’s handpainted porcelain is the highest expression of ‘rarefied’ and I deeply believe that if things become too rare in a way that people can’t experience them, then they disappear. In this way, our jewelry is allowing more people to experience Nymphenburg at its most exquisite.”

Forming the jewelry was a challenge for both studios, but discovering the porcelain could be cut much in the same way as gemstones proved to be a breakthrough moment. The final results look elegant layered with other adornments or stylish and smart worn on its own. “The beauty for me comes in seeing what people will do with it,” says the designer, who released the porcelain pieces simultaneously with another new array made using rubber. “This work with porcelain was incredibly gratifying but we are on an exploration of materials and helping to redefine what precious can mean in jewelry. The future is filled with possibility.”