Jewels may be a plush luxury, but that doesn’t mean they can’t also do some good. That’s the thinking behind the fundraiser for Dementia Singapore started by MUS Zenith Affair, a bespoke jewellery boutique located in the Raffles Arcade. The fundraiser is in its fifth consecutive edition this year, with a 2024 theme of ‘Gems from the Heart’. A focal point of the initiative this year is the introduction of an exclusive collection guest-designed by five jewellery connoisseurs.
Among them, private investor Wendy Long; MTM Labo managing director Kelly Keak, homemaker Patricia Kaunang, philanthropist Tai-Heng Cheng, and MUS.za’s own chief designer Christine Yip.
The fundraiser is operated with a ‘give while you get’ approach. Donations are, in essence, matched primarily with a gift of jewellery from MUS.za—or, with a range of other curated accessories and gifts from clients, friends and partners of the brand such as luxury hotel stays.
MUS Zenith Affair (stylised as MUS.za, and conceptualised as an emporium of museum-quality gems) founder Esther Ho first encountered Dementia Singapore, a social service agency dedicated to care for the condition, in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic. The organisation required its own test kits, recounted Ho to Vogue, prompting the businesswoman and jewellery consultant to get involved. What started as an initial goal of $20,000 ballooned, thanks in part to her ambition to do more, to $100,000.
This year, MUS.za is targeting a goal of raising $300,000—its most ambitious yet. Ho is neither shy nor bashful about their goal this year, and exhibited a peppy can-do spirit at a preview given to press. As a way of keeping the effort interesting for the givers involved, she has also introduced new facets of creation from MUS.za itself. In 2021, she launched a 133-page coffee table book titled Gems of Memories with all sales proceeds going to Dementia Singapore.
The novelty this year comes in the form of its guest-designed jewels. Given the prompt and theme of “hearts and arrows”, five individuals—drawn from MUS.za’s clients and friends—were given carte blanche to interpret the theme. “Each guest designer offers a distinct and enriching perspective,” said Ho, adding that, in fact, the worldly exposure that clients have—as jewellery lovers who cast a wide eye—brings creative freshness.
Patricia Kaunang’s design, for example, is a playful nod to the finger heart gesture from Korean television shows. It’s rendered as pairs of gemstones set at an angle—turquoises, rubies, emeralds and sapphires—on an arrow-shaped brooch. Carnelian hearts, meanwhile, are struck with diamond-set rose gold arrows in Wendy Long’s On Point suite of brooch, ring and earrings.
For Kelly Keak, the heart theme caused her to think about family, and the phrase “a heart of gold”. Her Brighter Hearts earrings and necklace are sectioned into articulated tiers of pavé diamonds on white gold, contrasted with a heart of yellow gold; the idea being that the most luminous heart is a generous one.
You’ll find light aplenty too in the Open Heart brooch by MUS.za chief designer Christine Yip. Taken as a play on the Mandarin words kai xin—happy, in translation; or open heart, literally. A diamond-set and, indeed, open heart is backed by a yellow gold arrow, dotted with a diamond, and designed to point directly at its wearer’s heart.
But perhaps the most imaginative designs are the Nails and Souls by Tai-Heng Cheng. They’re inspired by an apocryphal experiment from 1907 that posits that the weight of a human soul is 21 grammes. As jewels, that meant an adherence to the number: bracelets, a lapel pin, and a ring that each weigh 21 grammes. And on these designs, gemstones like tourmalines and diamonds weighing 2.10 carats. The ring is inspired by a casket, though perhaps its less macabre meaning, that of an ornamental box for cherished objects. Inside the ring is set a 2.10ct diamond which can be concealed with a screwed on gold lid.
Production on this collection of jewels took around two weeks, according to Ho. To get them completed, she put a momentary pause on work on MUS.za’s own pieces in order to craft the guest designers’ pieces. The most challenging piece is perhaps Cheng’s casket ring, a design that Ho emphatically says will be a one-off. The rest of the collection—and plenty more jewels from MUS.za’s own collection—are up for adoption, and can be viewed on its Instagram page or in the boutique at Raffles Arcade. Part of the proceeds will go to Dementia Singapore, and donations can alternatively be made online. The Gems from the Heart fundraiser ends in November.
