“They jingle, they jangle, I think they’re just right,” says jewellery designer Zoja Mihic, modelling an elegant pair of gilded serpent earrings from her latest collection.
A jewelled version of the snakes — made in oxidised silver and set with hundreds of tiny light-brown diamonds — was snapped up the first morning of Mihic’s recent trunk show in South Africa.
Born in Jo’burg, now based in Paris, 30-year-old Mihic started her accessories business as an enterprising teenager, selling multicoloured Swarovski-threaded bracelets to holidaymakers on Cape Town beaches when she was just 17.
“I never studied jewellery design,” she says, “I just started off being curious, always asking questions.
I had no preconceived idea of how things should be done. It forced me to be inventive. Then, once I’d learned certain skills, I would re-engage.
“I started with what was available locally — beads, thread — and eventually started working with metal, with semiprecious stones. I’m very respectful of the learning process. I don’t believe I know it all. I’m Âconstantly self-educating.”
Mihic eventually moved to France, where she completed an MBA at l’Essec. She now divides her time between Paris, Jo’burg and buying trips in the East — particularly in India — where she works with master silver- and goldsmiths and sources stones for her collections.
“Finding stones is the most exhilarating thing. You’re sifting through rough rock, organic pieces of unearthed mass. It’s only when you start cutting and faceting that the inspiration starts to flow. Working with stone cutters is fascinating. All the stones I use are uneven somehow, almost flawed. They lack perfection, but they have an authenticity I find warm. Calibrated stones freak me out. I find the repetition of that absolute perfection boring.”
To create the serpent earrings — “I have an obsession with snakes” — Mihic worked with a master silversmith in India to create samples. “There are ways to design them using CAD [computer aided design], but it’s just too perfect. It’s not my aesthetic.”
In the case of the jewelled versions, metalworkers spent three-and-a-half days carving out the individual stone settings by hand. “We needed to add texture,” Mihic says. “When you take a close look at the skin of a snake, it moves. The jewels animate it.”
For more information, go to www.zojamihic.com