From Estonia with love – The brand Artefacts
Contemporary design and local conscious creation – the perfect mix for jewellery. Evgenia Ozerova presents Artefacts, a brand made with love to be worn with style.
Briefly introduce yourself
My name is Evgenia Ozerova and I am from Estonia. I came to Luxembourg from Barcelona, Spain, where I worked as a Russian and English teacher for Luxury industry clients. When I moved to Luxembourg, I went to Antwerp Belgium to study diamonds and gemstones. This is when I became passionate gemstone and jewellery lover and totally changed my career: I became a jewellery designer, was involved in fine jewellery production, wrote articles about jewellery for a London based magazine and worked as a diamond expert for a Messika stores. I have created Artefacts to express my vision of contemporary conscious jewellery pieces: trendy, yet elegant. They are made with love to be worn with style.
Why ‘Artefacts’?
The name ‘Artefacts’ is made from of ‘Art’ and ‘Facts’. Art is for unique artistic self-expression through the facets of jewellery. The way you style it, accentuate your looks, express your personality. It is your unique vision of beauty. Being gemstone and jewellery insider, I share fascinating facts and stories about precious metal, gemstones, pearls and jewellery creation techniques. ‘Artefacts’ are man-made objects that have cultural and historical reference. Artefacts are about today, about here and now, about you and I. So to sum up, Artefacts tells stories about conscious pieces, made by people with love, to be worn with a unique personal style.
Your motto is ‘Designed in Luxembourg/Made in Europe’
Being a jewellery creator, I imagine and create pieces. There are some pieces that are hand made by me, like pearl and chain necklaces. But some designs are more complicated and require special equipment for soldering, rhodium and gold plating or enamel coating. I therefore collaborate with carefully selected European family-owned production workshops, that create my designs in very limited editions. This choice is strategic and conscious. Artefacts is a conscious brand. Up to 50% of silver used in my jewellery is recycled. All jewellery components, including packaging are made in Europe, resulting in a significantly lower carbon footprint. Made in Europe also means in accordance with non-toxic metals regulations. I can say that at Artefacts, we make conscious choices, aligned with human and brand values.
What is your favorite material?
I would like to talk about what I learned from both silver and pearls. Silver as compared to gold, is very flexible and soft. Many jewellers consider it a disadvantage, as silver pieces can be easily bent and altered in shape. Moreover, if you leave it in the air for a while, it will turn black. Thus silver teaches us here an important lesson : when things look black, there is always a silver lining. As for pearls, I carefully select all pearls used in Artefacts jewellery, and it is truely a fascinating organic material. When a little grain of sand gets in between a shell and a mantle, the mollusc suffers. In order to protect itself from this pain, the grain is coated with nano-layers of mother of pearl mineral substance. Eventually, with enough layers, a beautiful pearl is formed. So beauty is born from suffering.
What are the trends in jewellery?
To name just a few : metal and bicolour chains, tennis necklaces set with strass or gemstones, transformable jewellery, playful mix and match and enamel as well as heart shapes and blue colour in jewellery.
What inspires you?
Apart of being inspired by the material itself, I am celebrating the modern woman and her ability of transformation and self-love through my jewellery. Self-sufficient, self-made, yet not selfish. During centuries, women had to act in accordance with the social expectations. Her roles were defined and limited. They could not buy their own jewellery and had to depend on a man to offer it to them as a gift. But luckily times have changed. Just like beading a necklace, women are adding new roles, new challenges, new experiences to the string of her life, discovering herself on this heroic journey. Women now buy her own jewellery as a gift from herself to herself with love. My major client group are woman. Together we celebrate our life, our choices, our victories.
