– by Laura Astrologo Porché
At GemGenève, the Designers’ Village was not simply another curated section of the fair. It was one of the clearest places to read what is happening to contemporary jewelry now. Not a single trend, not a shared aesthetic, not a color palette imposed by the season, but a deeper shift: jewelry is moving away from the logic of display and toward a more intimate language of recognition, memory and self-definition.
For its tenth edition, held from May 7 to 10, 2026 at Palexpo, GemGenève once again brought together gemstone dealers, antique jewelry specialists, independent designers, collectors, institutions and métiers d’art. Founded by Thomas Faerber and Ronny Totah, and co-organized by Ida Faerber and Nadège Totah, the fair has built its identity precisely on this encounter between worlds that are often kept apart. The temporary exhibition “Shaping Matter, Enhancing Beauty”, conceived by Mathieu Dekeukelaire, Director of the fair, also set the tone: before becoming value, jewelry is matter transformed by intelligence, hand, patience and vision.
In the Designers’ Village, this idea became contemporary. Color, titanium, wood, bronze, leather, gemstones, Armenian memory, Ukrainian geometry and African birdlife did not appear as isolated decorative choices. They formed a constellation of positions. What mattered was not the accumulation of names or materials, but the way these different voices pointed to the same evolution: the jewel as a carrier of identity, cultural transmission and personal emotion.
For Nadège Totah, curator of the designers’ area and co-organizer of GemGenève, this is precisely what gives the show its distinctive character.
“What makes GemGenève different is that it brings together people who might not usually meet under the same roof. A collector looking for a historic gemstone may discover a contemporary designer, while a young creator can engage directly with some of the most respected dealers and experts in the industry. This creates a genuine ecosystem where knowledge, creativity and business naturally interact.”
That sense of exchange was visible throughout the Designers’ Village. Contemporary jewelry was not presented as an alternative to the world of gems and antique jewels, but as part of the same continuum. In a fair where connoisseurs, dealers, collectors and young designers cross paths, the jewel becomes a meeting point: between past and future, hand and technology, material value and emotional value.
“In a market that can sometimes become segmented, these exchanges are incredibly valuable. They encourage dialogue between tradition and innovation and remind us that jewelry and gemstones are part of a much larger cultural and creative story. That openness and cross-pollination are, I believe, what could distinguish GemGenève from more conventional fairs.”
One of the strongest signs of this cross-pollination was the treatment of materials. Titanium, in particular, emerged not as a technical curiosity but as a language of freedom. Its lightness, strength and chromatic potential allow designers to work with volume without heaviness, color without excess, and sculptural presence without sacrificing wearability. In a moment when jewelry is increasingly expected to speak to the body, not simply sit on it, titanium becomes more than a material: it becomes a way of thinking.
Richard Wu offered one of the most compelling examples. Originally trained in jade carving, he later deepened his knowledge of traditional goldsmithing techniques in Italy, including engraving and stone-setting. From that double education comes a personal vocabulary in which Eastern heritage and Western craftsmanship coexist with remarkable fluency. His titanium and diamond bracelet, almost like a cloud of rings suspended in motion, immediately changed the rhythm of looking. It did not behave like a conventional jewel. It seemed to bounce, breathe and move around the wrist.
Sebastián Plah used titanium in another register. The Milan-based designer of Colombian origin works with gold, titanium and diamonds to create pieces that feel light, confident and intensely chromatic. His jewels have a youthful clarity: vivid, iridescent, joyful, yet supported by Italian craftsmanship. A Paraiba tourmaline in one of his bracelets brought that unmistakable electric blue-green note that has become so desirable in contemporary high jewelry, not only for its rarity but for the emotion it projects instantly.
Color was everywhere, but rarely as simple decoration. In the work of A.win Siu, it became introspective. The Chinese designer, already familiar to the GemGenève audience, has developed a pop and philosophical universe in which jewels act almost as mirrors. Titanium, enamel, Brazilian Paraiba tourmaline, Burmese sapphire, ruby, spinel and diamonds are brought together not simply to dazzle, but to create a private imaginative field. Her colored stones carry a psychological charge. They are joyful, but never superficial.
This appetite for jewelry with inner depth is also changing the behavior of collectors. Nadège Totah sees this clearly in her conversations with visitors and buyers.
“What I hear increasingly from visitors and collectors is a desire for meaning and connection. Beyond technical excellence or rarity, they are looking for pieces that resonate with them emotionally and reflect their personality, values or life journey.”
This is where the Designers’ Village becomes more interesting than a conventional trend report. The real movement is not “more color”, “more titanium” or “more storytelling”. Those are symptoms. The deeper movement is the decline of the jewel as a pure sign of status and the rise of the jewel as a personal territory. A piece is no longer valued only for what it contains, but for what it allows the wearer to recognize, remember or project.
That shift was particularly evident in the Armenian presence at GemGenève. Returning to the fair for the third time, the Armenian Jewellers Association (AJA) presented five designers of Armenian heritage through winning pieces from the AJA Design Competition 2025–2026. The strength of this group lay precisely in its diversity. Armenia was not treated as a fixed repertoire of motifs, but as a living source of symbols, architecture, music, landscape and spiritual imagination.
Sergey Khalapyan’s “Armenia & Italy Friendship Bridge” gave this idea a clear structural expression. Crafted in 925 silver with natural lapis lazuli, the ring brings together elements from the Garni Temple, Republic Square’s fountains and Venice’s Rialto Bridge. The central lapis lazuli acts as a symbolic bridge between two cultures. It is a piece about connection, but also about construction: heritage is not merely remembered, it is built into the structure of the jewel.
Thessa Bodikian, a French-Armenian designer trained at the Haute École de Joaillerie in Paris and experienced with houses such as Chaumet and Chopard, offered a more refined and intimate interpretation. Her “L’Orient & L’Occident” earrings in 18-karat yellow gold and pavé diamonds evoke the meeting of East and West through openwork lines, architectural silhouettes and a rosette symbolizing lineage, memory and feminine strength. The jewel speaks in a quiet voice, but its subject is vast: belonging, transmission and the possibility of carrying several cultural worlds at once.
With Teni Yaghubian Moghadam, founder of Sévani and also a pianist, jewelry becomes almost musical. Her convertible brooch and pendant, “Apricot Tree”, is inspired by the Armenian apricot tree and by Komitas’ “Tsirani Tsar” song. Crafted in gold with sunstone, citrine and peridot, the piece translates vitality, sunlight and cultural memory into a jewel that can be worn in different ways. The discreet NFC element, which can play Komitas’ music, introduces technology without breaking the emotional continuity of the work. It is not a gimmick, but an extension of the narrative.
Evgenia Kasparova’s “Ararat Ring” approaches Armenian heritage through landscape and sculptural abstraction. Mount Ararat becomes a contemporary ring in sterling silver with gold plating and a custom-cut crystal. The twin peaks are reinterpreted through modern, constructed volumes, balancing digital precision with artisanal finishing. The result is not an illustrative tribute, but the transformation of a national and spiritual symbol into wearable form.
Arthur Torosyan pushed jewelry toward performance. His “Angel Tears”, a brass face mask adorned with Swarovski crystals and finished with rhodium, reimagines the jewel as a living, theatrical object. Inspired by biblical and angelic motifs, the piece moves beyond ornament into presence. It frames the face, transforms the wearer, and brings jewelry close to ritual, performance and contemporary art.
Together, these Armenian works formed one of the most coherent narratives of the Designers’ Village. They showed that heritage can be architectural, musical, spiritual, sculptural or performative. It can be carried in a stone, in a motif, in a mountain, in a melody, in a mask. Above all, they demonstrated that contemporary Armenian jewelry is not simply preserving memory. It is actively reshaping it.
Mike Joseph, born into an Armenian family of jewelers and now based in Bangkok, extended this story in another direction. His unisex pieces bring together gold, diamonds, wood and titanium with a sensibility that is at once rooted and international. In his work he proves that identity in contemporary jewelry is no longer a closed territory. It travels, adapts and transforms.
Memory took a different tone at Jacqueline Powers: less national, more personal and cinematic. Before being a brand, Jaqueline Powers appears as a muse. Her philosophy — “The more aware we are of our personal moments, the more alive we are, the more intense our life can be” — becomes a way of thinking about jewelry as a record of private intensity. Combining antique style, classical influences and timeless lines, the brand works with browns, grays and mineral shades that resist the obvious seduction of bright color. The effect is atmospheric, almost literary.
Through Strong & Precious, the initiative founded by Olga Oleksenko and dedicated to contemporary Ukrainian jewelry, another language emerged: sharper, more geometric, at times close to Cubist fragmentation. Here, the jewel became almost architectural, composed of planes, angles and abstract volumes. The body was no longer simply adorned, but used as the support for small structures of balance and tension. This geometry added another important dimension to the fair, showing how contemporary jewelry can move fluidly between ornament, sculpture and wearable
The widening of material possibilities was also evident in the work of Hemera Paris and Incarnem. Hemera Paris defines itself less as a jeweler than as a métiers d’art brand, bringing jewelry into dialogue with leatherwork, marquetry and featherwork. Its pieces return to an older, more personal notion of luxury: the unique object made for a particular person, story or inner landscape. Incarnem, by contrast, works close to the body. Through molding, imprint and bronze, Marine Billet, its founder, creates jewels that feel like fragments of reality translated into metal, second skins, traces, bodily memories.
The Jewelry and Gemstone Association of Africa (JGAA) added another significant voice to this landscape with the Africa Birdlife Collection. The winners of the JGAA’s Design Dynamic competition, invited to create around African birdlife, brought forward a vibrant design energy rooted in the African continent and its diaspora, with winning entries from South Africa, Egypt, Eswatini and Brazil. Their presence expanded the discussion beyond aesthetics, linking contemporary jewelry to representation, opportunity and cultural visibility.
“Contemporary jewelry offers that possibility. It invites people to engage with a designer’s vision and to build a personal relationship with the piece. Many collectors today are not simply acquiring an object; they are embracing a story, supporting a creative voice and becoming part of that creator’s universe.”
This sentence from Nadège Totah could serve as a key to the entire Designers’ Village. The most interesting pieces at GemGenève were not simply well made or visually striking. They opened worlds. A collector was not simply encountering materials, but personal mythologies, cultural geographies, technical experiments and inner landscapes.
“That shift is particularly visible at the Designers’ Village, where conversations often begin with a piece of jewelry but quickly become conversations about ideas, emotions and identity.”
At GemGenève, the trend was not a shape, a stone or a color. It was the transformation of jewelry into a language of recognition. Contemporary jewelry did not conform to one style, one material or one idea of beauty. It unfolded instead as a chorus of many voices: chromatic and joyful, architectural and symbolic, spiritual and intimate.
What united them was a renewed sense of preciousness, no longer measured only by rarity, but by meaning, memory and emotional resonance. In that sense, the Designers’ Village did not simply reflect current trends. It showed how contemporary jewelry is redefining the very idea of trend: not as a shared look, but as a shared need for depth.
Articles about GEMGENÈVE:
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Guest articles by Laura Astrologo Porché:
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About the author:
Laura Astrologo Porché
@journaldesbijoux
Laura Astrologo Porché is a senior jewelry journalist and opinion leader in the global luxury community. She writes for Forbes Italy and Robb Report Italy, serves as Head of Jewelry at L’Orafo Italiano, is Editor-in-Chief for Watches & Jewels at Celebre Magazine, and is a contributor to Rapaport, GemGuide/Gemworld, and other publications.
She is the founder of Journal des Bijoux and over the years, she has built an engaged jewelry and watch community on LinkedIn and Instagram, earning recognition as a Top Influencer Marketing Voice by LinkedIn in 2024.
