COROL
Corol is a manifesto of the desirability of the coral torn from reefs, whose admired beauty is nothing but the skeleton of a dead animal. This jewellery collection only reveals its intrinsic colour when put back in the water: the coral's native environment.
Through their role in oxygen production, corals play a major role in the balance of life on earth. But the contagious deadly bleaching of their reefs across the world is a testament to human’s negligence towards the ecosystems hidden underwater. In Singapore, as elsewhere, the expansion of coastal lands also contributes to this massive extinction.
Revered as a precious material, coral is also the subject of a destructive fishery fueling the jewellery industry. Torn from the seabed, their polychrome beauty turns into a colourless skeleton, becoming coveted pieces of jewellery. Sadly, their ironic morbidity is never perceived.
The Corol jewellery collection illustrates the paradox of the coral, its extinction seemingly more desirable than its living form. Like on the reliefs of the seabed, their lines hug the body's contours, suggesting a harmonious proliferation. Their appearance is dull and rough as if whitened by sand, but like a seashell picked up on the beach's edge, only water reveals its full colour, as if back to its natural environment.
There then arises the dilemma of this jewel which displays its true beauty only in its water box. If exposed to the air and worn, its colourful soul fades into a matte crystal skeleton, like a metaphor for a dead coral whose living colour has faded.
DESIGNERS
HUANG ANQI
KWANG YU HANG