Jewellery designers opt for the unconventional with new tradition breaking pieces

It’s a metal prized by the military and the aerospace industry because of its strength and corrosion resistance, but titanium is working its way into the world of high jewellery.

Named after the Titans from Greek mythology, Titanium is also biocompatible with the human body and boasts the highest strength-to-weight ratio and, as such, it was traditionally regarded as a material unfit to be used for high jewellery.

Nonetheless, it has become a coveted metal used in high-end jewellery design, especially by Cindy Chao and Wallace Chan, who have successfully bent titanium to their will.

Chao, an independent Taiwanese jewellery designer best known for her Black Label Masterpieces collections, started using titanium in 2012 for a piece called Transcendence Butterfly. The piece, which used titanium as the base metal, took her nearly two years to complete.

Because of its “hardness, titanium settings take five times more time and effort to work on than the usual 18ct gold used in fine jewellery,” Chao says. “It requires a completely different skill set to heat and form the metal in much higher temperatures.”

Her latest creation, a stunning necklace called “Winter Leaves”, is large and extravagant, yet the titanium portion of it only weighs 40 grams. The piece, which will debut this year at Biennale des Antiquaires, features titanium sculpted to water-like effect.

Chan, famous for his multiple innovative jewellery-making techniques and designs, also attests to titanium’s uncompromising character. He spent eight years trying to tame titanium before his big breakthrough finally came in 2007.

“It is very stubborn; its memory is much stronger than that of gold, meaning that if you bend it, it bounces back,” he explains.

His latest masterpiece, a 2.2m multicoloured peony flower sculpture titled “Rise of Heart”, is made of titanium and was carved by hand, a testament to his unique savoir faire.