After eight years at the National Design Centre, Singaporean jewellery designer Carolyn Kan has moved house and found new digs for her brand Carrie K. at a heritage shophouse along Neil Road. It’s a 1,900 square feet atelier, designed by Wellington-based interior designer Priscilla Tan, with touches of blue and made to look like a playful and welcoming home. At the heart of it all is a new Jewel Bar of Wearable Wishes, a curation of the brand’s fine jewellery collections that are inspired by traditional Asian beliefs and motifs.
There are, for example, star designs inspired by Malay songket brocade patterns that espouse a gotong royong spirit of unity and togetherness; and lotus designs that reference the flower’s meaning of peace and harmony. It’s a design evolution several years in the making for the brand, which started out more than a decade ago with fun, maverick pieces. Now, the story at Carrie K. has expanded to include fine jewellery with meaning that’s meant to celebrate and mark occasions and milestones.
The brand’s new atelier space also includes a mezzanine level that offers an intimate, private space for consultations and viewings. Think of it as a VIP lounge, where the brand’s in-house gemologist and designer is able to work together with you on customised pieces such as engagement rings or redesigning heirloom pieces. And it’s not just intended for couples. Carrie K. also offers a range of gemstone and pearl workshops—best taken with a group of friends, perhaps—that provides a transparent crash course on the fundamentals of jewellery so that you can be an informed shopper. These are fun experiences regardless, and help to enrich a viewing or shopping experience.
That aside, you can expect to find the full range of Carrie K. jewellery collections here. Many of the latest designs are highly customisable and feature transformable, modular elements that allow you to wear a single piece multiple ways. There are modular earrings with detachable drops and studs, and ring jackets that you can slide a solitaire into to wear as an expanded halo. But perhaps the most wildly customisable creations have to do with pearls. The brand has devised a whole collection of chains, clips and clasps—offered in a range of precious metals and stones—that opens up a nearly infinite number of ways to wear pearls.
These came out of Kan’s own strands which she inherited from her mother. When the designer gently explained to her mother that the pearls were not exactly her style—a familiar piece of diplomacy surely for anyone who’s inherited old jewels—she was challenged to remake them. Kan is, after all, a jewellery designer. From that gentle provocation came these accoutrements, which connect to each other by a twist-lock mechanism dubbed the Duō. The brand has even styled them over a hundred ways, with contributions from some creative clients too, and put them together in a look book for inspiration and reference—a witty way to give these jewels a stylish new lease.
Carrie K., 77B Neil Road, Level 3, Singapore 088903
