Top 10 Jewels: JUNWEX St Petersburg 2015

Between 4th and 8th February the Junwex annual jewellery exhibition took place in St Petersburg. I visited it for the first time to find out about the latest work by tsome Russian designers and companies, and as usual I have selected ten of the best pieces to write about here.

Before we get on to talking about the best of the jewellery, I want to tell you a bit about the exhibition itself. It took place in the new Expoforum building, which held the event as part of its efforts to get itself on a level with the scale of the big European shows and open up the event space to more exhibitors. The exhibition complex itself is very large so the organisers of Junwex split the room into three halls. In the first hall a number of big companies set up closed-off salons; in number two private jewellery studios displayed their work, along with brands who have points of sales around Russia; and the third hall taken up by independent designers and small businesses whose jewellery was of interest to individual customers rather than wholesale buyers.

The exhibition itself was frequented not just by people directly connected with the industry but also by jewellery aficionados interested in making individual purchases. On the 7th and 8th they took the stalls by storm, desperate to get their hands on something they liked.

The ten pieces of jewellery which I have talked about here are by no means the only ones worthy of note. In picking my favourites I have tried to convey the sheer variety of the jewellery and art on offer, created by masters of the industry from all over Russia.