Craft

Abby for Abby Seymour

Since we last caught up with Abby Seymour back in 2014, the Melbourne designer / maker has been honing her skills, and exploring new ways to expand her one-woman design practice.

Today, she launches Abby for Abby Seymour, a new diffusion line encompassing an array of eye-catching  handcrafted homewares and accessibly priced jewellery.

Written
by
Elle Murrell

Jewellery and homewares designer Abby Seymour in her Kensington studio. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

The jewellery diffusion label, Abby for Abby Seymour, evolved from Abby’s desire to create more spontaneously and approach jewellery design in a new context. Pictured: Khan tassel earrings in bronze, lilac, copper and navy. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Designs from the Abby for Abby Seymour diffusion line. Photo – courtesy of Abby Seymour.

New jewellery dishes for Abby’s diffusion label. ‘I always had the intention that I wanted to create a beautiful, well-considered object and jewellery “box” to sit in its own right and accompany jewellery,’ she says. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

‘My new diffusion label still distinctly displays my signature illustrative style and aesthetic but,   with the homewares: in a few form, and with the jewellery: at a more accessible point,’ tells Abby. Photo by Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Jewellery designs from the Abby for Abby Seymour diffusion line. Photo – courtesy of Abby Seymour.

Abby at work in her Kensington studio. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Studio details. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Abby works in a fantastic light-filled environment, stocked with all manner of tools, materials and specialised equipment. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Design notes, sketches and wall hanging prototypes (featuring hand-textured and painted brass sheet, brass chain, tubing and rivets, aluminium sheet, and linen yarn) in the studio. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

The Abby for Abby Seymour range includes both handcrafted jewellery and decorative homewares. Photo – courtesy of Abby Seymour.

Writer
Elle Murrell
24th of April 2017

Abby Seymour is all about pushing parameters. The jewellery designer is continually working to refine and strengthen her skills, learning new techniques and gaining more of an understanding about her raw materials as she fleshes out creative concepts.

It’s this exploration that has given rise to Abby for Abby Seymour. The just-launched diffusion label includes Abby’s first foray into homewares, with a collection of brass and ceramic wall hangings – MoonDiamond Tufts, Arc Drop, and Moon Diamond. ‘It struck me that the home is a place of such personal expression – an exciting new environment to apply my design approach’ explains the designer, who found that working on a different scale has helped bring a sense of playfulness to her process.

Abby’s idea to combine her chosen materials – precious metals and ceramics – arose quite spontaneously, through workshops she was teaching in both disciplines. ‘I love object, jewellery and art, so I naturally thought of an outcome: wall hangings that could tie these two media together,’ Abby tells. ‘I also wanted to be able to offer my students a class where they could come away with a finished product.’ Trials of wall-hanging-design classes followed, and garnered an amazing response. This new venture prompted Abby to embark on a new collection.

Abby for Abby Seymour also includes a faceted jewellery dish design, with solid brass lids are crafted by Abby and her father in his metal lathe in Tasmania. ‘I would not have had the time, nor the expertise to create these without my tool-maker extraordinaire/furniture designer father,’ says Abby of the exclusive pieces. Additional versions come in milk porcelain and Victorian Ash. Integrating geometry and intricate texture, the designer hopes that her new homewares embody the timeless-yet-contemporary style for which she is continually striving.

A range of new jewellery pieces also echo this aesthetic, though Abby has simplified designs and materials to arrive at a more accessible price point (in comparison to the premium jewellery lines she has created in the past). ‘This has enabled me to work with less constraints, and allowed more immediate and spontaneous designing’ tells Abby.

Juggling her premium jewellery label, new diffusion homewares and jewellery label, high-end commissioned jewellery, collaborations and workshops… Abby admits the pull to constantly reinvent her output in pace with the industry can, at times, seem overwhelming. ‘There’s something in me that needs to keep evolving and pushing the boundaries… and biting off more than I can chew!’ she jokes. ‘I quite often get emails addressed “Dear Abby Seymour team” (most likely because it seems unfathomable that one person would be doing all of those things), but it is just me… though I am working towards that “team” part!’

Abby Seymour is looking to secure a new studio and showroom space to grow her practice in the near future. Until then, her Abby for Abby Seymour designs are available from today, here, while her premium ranges can be perused online, as well as at selected bricks-and-mortar stockists.

Designer Abby Seymour pictured with two new wall hanging designs from her Abby for Abby Seymour diffusion label: ‘Diamond Tufts’ and ‘Arc Drop’. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

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