To satirise the vanity of our times, Japanese-born British jewellery designer Akiko Shinzato has designed a line that bluntly catalogues our beauty obsessions. You know, those signs of vitality we try to fake, usually on a Monday morning, through pink cheeks, twinkling eyes and red lips. Using gemstones, leather and metal wires, she fashions noses you can clip on to your own flawed one, spectacles that replace your eyes with prettier specimen and under-the-chin straps that position rubies on the apples of your cheeks. Of course, rubies are not going to replace rouge anytime soon and the whole premise of this line is made stranger by the fact of one status symbol, ie jewellery, being used to mock another one, ie physical perfection.
Shinzato, who recently graduated from the art and design school of Central Saint Martins in London, has a penchant for conceptual work. Her designs in collaboration with Swarovski were featured in the Alexander McQueen tribute exhibition, Savage Beauty. Themed ‘Clown’, it consisted of a thick leather chinstrap that covered the mouth with a smile painted in blood-red crystals. If you like jewellery that shocks and awes, this is the young designer to keep an eye on.
Update: If the recent S/S 16 shows by Givenchy and Dion Lee are any indication, face ornamentation is here to stay.
Flip through to see Akiko Shinzato’s skin jewellery
