A Dazzling Decade: Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Yi Collection

Since celebrating the 10-year anniversary of KaterinaPerez.com in 2023, I will admit to having a newfound appreciation and respect for any fellow business owner who reaches this incredible milestone. It’s certainly not easy to maintain high levels of creativity and craftsmanship, especially with a consistent focus on quality and professionalism. So, when I was approached by Yi Guo, the founder of Yi Collection, about her 10th-anniversary collection – Contour – I knew I had to find out more. Here is a woman who has honed her signature colourful style and created multiple collections, all of which exude modern elegance and sophistication. To celebrate the brand’s 10th anniversary, I asked Yi about her background in fashion, her penchant for fancy-cut gemstones, and her growth over the last decade. What has she learned along the way? Let’s find out…

In the early stages of developing Yi Collection, travelling to Sri Lanka and Myanmar – the sapphire and ruby capitals of the world – planted the first inspirational seeds. Yi created a small collection of fine jewellery infused with coloured gemstones, focusing on a simple, modern and elegant aesthetic that aligned with her personal style. The pieces were all designed to shine on their own or be worn together for a more impactful, layered look. This is something that we can continue to see in Yi Collection’s portfolio more than a decade later. Customers can either mix their own palette of coloured gemstone jewels together or wear singular creations with fancy-cut gemstones as standalone statement pieces. “Our signature style is modern and graphic with coloured gemstones as a focus,” Yi explains. “The core of what drives me is my love of coloured gemstones. I am very lucky to work with my own artisans, and we produce everything in-house at our atelier in Bangkok, the coloured gemstone capital of the world.”

The close working relationship that Yi has with gem cutters and manufacturers is evident in some of the unusual cuts that fuel her ranges. For example, the Bar collection contains elongated crystals of tourmaline, morganite, and sapphire set east-to-west and extra-long towers of bi-colour tourmalines set north-to-south. The Crescendo collection takes this theme up a notch with slimline emerald-cut tourmalines set in graduating sizes to mimic the swell of music. Elsewhere, there are beautiful elongated pear-shaped aquamarines paired with triangular tsavorites in the Spring Dewdrop collection, French-cut pink tourmalines among the stackable Petite Circle rings, and pear-shaped tanzanites in the Flora & Fauna offering.

However, nothing demonstrates this better than the Contour collection, which was specifically created to celebrate the brand’s 10th anniversary. In this range, we can really see how Yi’s style has evolved and how she’s settled into her own unique rhythm as a champion of unconventional cuts. “I think I have really come into my own in the jewellery field,” she explains. “I have become more confident in myself and my designs over the last 10 years. We only grow if we face challenges, and I have faced a lot of challenges. However, I have learned so much on this entrepreneurial journey. I think my style has become more confident and focused in a way that mirrors the personal journey I have been on.”

At the heart of this collection is a palette of icy blue aquamarines cut into an incredible array of shapes, like rhombuses, kites, shields, triangles and so on. These are often paired together to appear like organic shards of frozen water, accented with fancy-cut diamonds for additional sparkle. I am told the collection took approximately six months to produce, with Yi acknowledging that she has poured her heart and soul into each creation.

She says: “It was incredibly challenging, but I loved every minute of it, and I am so grateful for the experience. I have learned so much during this process.” What is especially clever is how each of the gemstone shapes is unexpected but perfectly balanced. The Aquamarine Contour High Jewellery necklace, for example, is asymmetrically constructed, with no two beryls being exactly alike. However, they all seem to flow in ideal harmony, even though there are more than 120 carats of aquamarines and 2.6 carats of diamonds to factor in. “This balancing of shapes comes from the soul, I think,” Yi says. “The question of what makes a shape work and what doesn’t isn’t necessarily about symmetry. A lot of the shapes we’ve created are not symmetrical or have mathematical balance, but they are visually pleasing. This is something special and unique about our Contour collection.”

There was a line in the brand’s anniversary press release that really stood out to me. When discussing the Contour collection, it reads: “No longer whispering luxury, these designs command attention.” As this range contains Yi Collection’s first high jewels, I think it’s rather apt. Alongside the Contour necklace described above, there is a matching pair of earrings with 17.08 carats of angular aquas and a bracelet with 33.56 carats of gems, all set in 18k yellow gold. Yi continues: “This collection showcases all our artisans’ craftsmanship. A total of six hands went into the creation of this collection, seven including my own. We buy our aquamarines directly from miners in Madagascar and cut each piece in-house. It is a very special process when you create a piece from the very beginning.”

Having reached this incredible anniversary and launched such a dynamic collection, I feel like this is the start of a new era for Yi Guo and her brand. With her newfound confidence, I expect we will see plenty more high jewels in the future, incorporating even more eccentric combinations of coloured stones and custom-cut minerals. She concludes: “I would love the brand to be a household name. If people associate Yi Collection with coloured gemstone jewellery for the modern woman, I will have done my job.”