Creature Comforts: Alexandra Abramczyk

Eschewing simplistic, abstract designs, the designer creates vibrant, lifelike collections inspired by nature.

Alexandra Abramczyk’s bejeweled bestiary is crawling with totemic scarabs, sensual snakes and shimmering fish. Thoughtfully designed, these talismans are shaped from textured 18-karat gold and lavishly set with colored gemstones. Their realistic features stand out; the designer dislikes abstract or childish representations of the animal world. Abramczyk, who started out at Cartier’s high-jewelry division, is particularly fond of transforming natural species into desirable jewels, a vision she shares with the venerable maison.

“Animals represent life; they are part of my universe. I am inspired by their plumage and their beautiful colors. A ladybug, a butterfly, a blue humpback whale — everything is so beautiful for me. It is like everything has been painted,” she says.

Abramczyk worked with her French-trained artisans in Thailand for more than a year and a half to ensure the animals in her one-of-a-kind Secret Glass necklace collection were the most “realistic possible, the closest to nature.” Delicately engraved, her giraffe, koi carp, elephant and other charismatic species are encased in a glass frame with gemstones, becoming wearable art pieces.

Going places
It’s not just animals that make her drive her team to the highest levels of precision. For a pair of cufflinks inspired by the ancient profile of an Egyptian man, she wanted the details of the face to be as true to life as craftsmanship could deliver.

This painstaking commitment to faithful representation stems from her initial training in fine arts and her work as an old-painting and furniture conservator in Madrid, Spain, in her 20s. Looking to be part of a team, she moved from the solitary environment of restoration to jewelry. After studying gemology and jewelry design in Paris, she worked for Cartier and Graff before opening a studio dedicated to custom luxury pieces. In 2015, she launched the Alexandra Abramczyk fine-jewelry brand, aspiring to bring high-end crafting techniques to a more mainstream market.

“I have over 200 pieces [in my collections]. If I weren’t stopped, I would have 450,” laughs Abramczyk, whose creative energy expands beyond gold and gemstones. Currently residing in Tel Aviv, Israel, the designer also makes luxurious silk kimonos that evoke exotic destinations.

Hailing from a cosmopolitan family with roots in Argentina, Europe and India, she turns to travel as one of her main inspirations. Italy, Japan, Brazil, and Peru are among the many destinations that have captured Abramczyk’s fertile imagination. “All my life, I have traveled, and my house is like a soul, with all the objects I have brought back from trips to India, Bali or Venice,” she says of her technicolor, art gallery-esque home.

Bursts of color
When she is not dreaming up exquisite jewels, she volunteers to create more welcoming spaces for disabled children in a specialized center, and works with young adults suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction. This altruistic spirit is at the source of her earliest fine jewels. While in Bali, she met a mentor who encouraged her to wear chakra colors to help her recenter. Feeling a burst of creativity in her drawings and an inner peace, Abramczyk says, she wanted more people to experience this well-being. “I function with colors. If I can bring people the energy that colored gemstones bring me, that makes me happy.”

Her rainbow pieces display an enticing gradation of colored stones, with subtle transitions between hues. The multicolor palette appears in creations the jeweler sees as everyday staples. “I think we can wear the rainbow earrings more easily than diamonds,” she points out, referring to hoops that exude chromatic vitality.

Her love of nature and color happily meet in her latest launch, her Amourettes rings, from the French word for love. They feature a pear- or heart-shaped stone floating from the band in a rich range of hues. “Each shape and each color corresponds to a woman, like a flower garden in nature,” Abramczyk explains.

With its infinite supply of textures and color combinations, the natural world has much to offer this sensitive designer who is always on the lookout for beauty and emotion.