Jewellery designer Suzanne Syz talks about being a self-taught designer, her penchant for rare metals and gemstones, her love affair with colours and pop art and more importantly, not conforming to the rulebook of fashion. By Vijetha Rangabashyam

There is something extremely whimsical about Suzanne Syz’s jewellery. Like most successful jewellery designers who don’t like to conform themselves to trends, Syz’s jewellery is an outcome of her unadulterated imagination, pieces that you’ve never seen before or will never see again. One look at her pieces and you come to know that she is a lover of colours – they are kaleidoscopic, bursting with fun and a sense of flirtatiousness. ‘My jewellery is fun, whimsical and for people who don’t take them self too seriously,’ she says with a little laugh.

When you think of luxury, you think of classics – diamonds, platinum, gold all muddled together in elegant designs. But Syz takes the definition of luxury to a whole new level. There’s a generous use of aluminium and titanium in her jewellery. ‘I love aluminium and titanium as I can colour them in many shades and make fun pieces. I also love to work with bronze.

The idea that the piece will change in time with oxidation is very exciting. It brings more life to the piece.’ Even when it comes to gemstones, Syz uses diamonds as a mere accessory; the star of a piece remains to be offbeat, peculiar gemstones. ‘I’ve always been attracted to unconventional stones and metals. I don’t go for the “everyone” stone. I like spinels very much, Paraiba tourmaline and sometimes fall in love with a diamond but rarely. It must be the perfect one!’

Born in Switzerland, Suzanne is a self-taught designer. What started off as a penchant for gemstones eventually led to something bigger. ‘I always loved gems since I was a child. I remember finding a rock crystal when I was around 7 years old during a walk in the mountains with my grandfather. Since then I’ve always been fascinated by the stones and collected them. Passion for jewellery came later.’ The proclivity to create something from scratch was her second nature, ‘I first started to design a few pieces for myself and friends asked me where I got them. I finally designed pieces for them and friends of friends and suddenly I was in the business. I also decided to create only one-of-akind pieces, which was missing at the time. Jewellery is personal and eachwoman is unique.’ Which brings us to the question – why no collections? Syz doesn’t do collections. She creates pieces all year around, inspired by the contemporary art, sometimes by nature or objects of daily use. An inspiration for a design can even come from a metal and for Syz it was aluminium. ‘Lately, I’ve designed pieces with aluminium that allows me to create jewellery in pop colours. I did some question and exclamation mark earrings and some gift knots, one in each colour. I was amazed how they sold in one day.’

What is the formula for making such tasteful jewellery? ‘It is pretty simple. When I have an idea, I see it in 3D in my mind. I’m not such a good sketcher, so I ask my ateliers to join me and I explain to them in detail what I see. Then we have several meetings where they present to me wax or prototypes and we make changes to it till it comes out perfectly! All my pieces are unique and never reproduced unless they are daytime pieces that I create in 8 colours (but only one time per colour). So, I take the time to make every single piece as beautiful as I can and with the best quality of craftsmanship.’ Doesn’t seem very simple to me!

It is very hard to pick a favourite from a panoply of eloquent designs, yet a pair of earrings really stood out for me. Aptly christened the ‘Sea, sexand sun’, these mismatched earrings use clusters of coral and turquoise beads along with emerald beads. The addition of diamonds brings these colours of nature to life. Syz’s jewellery is not for the ordinary woman, she has to be someone with imagination and who is not afraid of being different. ‘My designs are for the independent women of the 21st century. Working mom-traveller-art collector who is busy. Women who want to wear comfortable pieces that can fit either a business meeting, a cocktail party or just while playing with their kids. And most importantly they all have to have a great sense of humour and be positive in life!’

Syz has given us the very quirky question marks, Life Savers, Edison’s light bulbs, galette bracelets, smarties rings and more. With her creations, she takes us through a journey of the unseen, filled with colour, magic, art and more importantly, creativity. And every one of these pieces has a bit of New York in them. ‘I met all the great artists in the early 80’s in NYC. It was a time of total freedom and creativity. The art scene was in ebullition,’ she signs off.