"I have always done my jewellery and ceramics parallel - to me ceramics are jewellery for the home," Anissa Kermiche tells Hello! Fashion. Although she is maybe best known for her provocative ceramics that exploded on Instagram pre-pandemic (for a while you literally couldn’t scroll through Instagram without one of Anissa’s iconic 'Love Handles' posterior shaped vases in your face) she has been designing jewellery for just as long.
Her latest collection was designed with the intention to explore the erotic links between womanhood, sexuality and flowers. It offers jewellery that glistens with sex appeal through the use of whirling petals, flirty stamens and "tenacious but delicate genital forms."
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Anissa Kermiche pictured at home
"My jewellery and homeware explores the female form and ideas of femininity, which can often be wrapped floral metaphors, whether visually in art, or in language. I wanted to explore this in a way that felt modern and fresh," Anissa explains, "Instead of examining the female form itself, it is a metaphorical look at femininity— we invented new flowers that suggest body parts, rather than being too literal. So nothing you would find in either a biology or anatomy textbook."
The name of the collection is purposefully provocative, and it couldn’t come at a more appropriate time. Even post #metoo women's rights are still being tested around the world. This is something Anissa is acutely aware of, "It is important to me women have the right to freely express their femininity and sexuality and still feel safe," Anissa explains "when looking at the bigger political picture, for instance the current persecution women are facing in Iran, or the removal of abortion rights in the US."
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Ms Connie Lingus earring
Flowers and female sensuality have always had a long-standing connection. In the classical age, women, particularly virgins, were compared to flowers. And so, floral metaphors for women’s genitals began to 'blossom,' for lack of a better word. So it makes perfect sense that the collection is provocatively called ‘Deflowered.' "It is asking what it means to be deflowered in the modern age where ideas of purity as a currency for marriage are so outdated,” explains Anissa, "There is a purposeful visual dissonance between the word 'deflowered', with connotations of withering and impermanence and seeing our wearers glided with precious petals."
The pieces in her collection were all given playful monikers to convey the illustrious relationship between Flora and Femininity. Names such as 'Budding Romance,' 'Late Bloomer' and 'Lady Garden.' "When we came to naming this collection, we found an interesting tension with the floral metaphors used to describe women, as they often have sexual or sensual undertones, and are often associated with the love language of another era," says Anissa, "We wanted to playfully repossess this language and make people reconsider it for today’s world. Also, we love a pun."
The jewellery interacts with the body in unexpected ways, "a pave stem though an earlobe in the Horny earring for example, or across the collarbone in our Budding Romance necklace. As if a woman has spontaneously burst into bloom," she confirms, "I love the Budding Romance Earring, the flower itself was one of our design challenges, and I love the way the stem glides through the ear as if the flower is growing upwards. It looks beautiful on."
The budding romance earring
Anissa wants the wearers to feel empowered in her pieces, and also beautiful, "Jewellery has no specific function, other than to adorn the body - It is not a handbag or pair of shoes, it is there to create a conversation and be provocative."
We can say with certainty that everything in this collection is going to be a conversation starter.
Shop Deflowered here
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