December 10, 2024 |
Rebellion so clearly fuels Hannah Martin’s febrile imagination, ignites her creativity and stokes her striking personal style that I started to wonder why she opted to immerse herself in precious jewellery, surely the most traditional and convention-bound of artistic expressions? But then, perhaps that’s exactly why she was drawn to it. Its irresistible challenge of subverting convention, breaking rules and rocking the status quo. Growing up in Bristol, she graduated from Central Saint Martins and started out as an independent designer-jeweller some 20 years ago. Now, as she prepares to launch her 10th collection – The Perfect Drug – Martin, 44, is looking back and explaining how she stumbled on jewellery, which was only one element of her foundation course at CSM.
Hannah Martin stands in front of the inspiration board for her latest collection, The Perfect Drug, which is her 10th
“Originally, I had thought I would focus on sculpture. But as soon as I got into the workshop, started bashing metal and thought about design, wearability and practicality, I was hooked. I knew that was what I wanted to do.” Jewellery was foreign territory for her. “I had no relationship with jewellery, no connection, no family jewels passed down. Maybe just a few bits bought in Camden Market when I wanted to look like [one of] the Lost Boys [from the ’80s vampire film]. But at Saint Martin’s I discovered jewellery as an art form.”
Martin went on to complete her degree in jewellery design at CSM and, having won the esteemed Cartier Award, spent time apprenticing at the bench in Cartier’s Paris ateliers. It was there, she recalls, that she ‘discovered’ luxury. “I never really knew it existed, although I had always loved beautiful things. In Paris I fell in love with craftsmanship, with attention to detail, quality, refinement and the whole concept of precious materials, especially gold.” It was there, too, in the heart of Parisian jewellery heritage, that Martin found the challenge that propelled her into creating her own brand and creative identity. She laughs at the memory. “I thought: ‘Here’s a world that needs shaking up.’” And boy, did she shake it up – boy being the operative word. Way ahead of her time, from the start she questioned the gender bias in the jewellery world, as she realised there was very little jewellery for men. She didn’t understand why jewellery for men and women had to be so different. Her degree show at CSM was called It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll. That was when I first met Martin and discovered her heady mix of provocation and sophistication, revolution and refinement, and felt the energy of her bouncy, boundless enthusiasm. Her first collection, launched in 2005, evolved the rock ’n’ roll theme by creating “jewels for men that girlfriends would want to steal”. This laid the foundations of her androgynous, bold, gold, sculptural, monumental and uncompromisingly contemporary style. Those designs remain best sellers today, she says.
from left: All Access Fluid Strap Two Tone Chain in sterling silver and yellow gold and Fluid Strap Two-Tone Chain in sterling silver and yellow gold
Since then, Martin has continued to both strengthen and refine this unmistakable look, throwing into her fiery crucible of inspirations a passion for rock music and a fascination with punk, counterculture, subculture and life on the edge. She has a raging curiosity and a personal drive to experience the full spectrum of life. Always channelling the heroism of her beloved gold, each of her collections has been underpinned with an imaginative narrative, often inhabited by characters she has dreamt up.
Vincent, the imaginary muse of one of her collections, was a suave, sophisticated and deadly dangerous Russian gangster who ruled London’s streets. His underworld character and sartorial choices fused with Martin’s interests in Russian constructivism and Stalinist architectural monumentalism to produce jewels like an empty sovereign ring. This massive gold and gem-set open circle, bereft of its coin, is a symbol of identity, belonging and power with a hint of Belle Époque dandyism. With Vincent, she says, she was getting into her stride, in terms of both gender fluidity and architectural form,
from left: Liquid Harness Chain necklace, in yellow gold and All Access Two-Tone bracelet in sterling silver and yellow gold from The Perfect Drug collection, Hannah’s heavyweight rings are from her previous collections and Hannah wears ten different gold earrings in one ear
Martin is interested in the contradictions within the role and meaning of the jewel, particularly between ownership, possession or belonging and the freedom of individual expression. And also between masculine and feminine, hard and soft, as well as the dichotomies of constraint and freedom in the jewel’s physical attributes. The tension generated by these contradictions and conflicts gives her work its compelling power; this tension was encapsulated in her Somebody’s Sins collection. Conjured around her fictional, enigmatic, underworld character Mr S, and enmeshed in a dark web of dangerous beauty, the collection oozed raw sensuality, with wickedly hedonistic yet romantic undertones. In the startling Possession cuff, the strength of the monumental gold structure, with its sharp planes and angles, contrasts with the soft vulnerability suggested by glimpses of flesh, the fragile wrist beneath. Similarly, the golden shackle bangle, which first appeared in her Aguila Dorada collection, with its piratical theme and promises of secret, stolen, hidden treasure was, suggests Martin, not about capture but a “bid for freedom”.
In 2020, true to her roots, Martin unleashed the collection A New Act of Rebellion. It was more daring, confrontational and confident than ever before, a re-imagining of punk emblems, particularly the chain and safety pin. These both suggest the connectivity expressed in the collection’s standout jewel, a bangle constructed of massively oversized interlocking gold links, mechanistic yet sensual. It even doubles as a table sculpture. She was inspired by heavy industrial steel chains, the kind you find with padlocks on gates, and explained that she saw the chain not as restraint but as freedom, strength and power. Again anticipating current trends, she saw the necklace as the ultimate cross-gender jewel. The carefully orchestrated jumble of different links and colours of gold, with glimpses of smooth dark ebony and dangling safety pins, was intended to recreate the thrown-together aesthetic of original punk jewellery. “I felt so strong working on this one,” she says. “I had been through dramatic break-ups, both personal and professional, and I felt as if all my power came alive with this collection. I imagined an empty, post-party room, destroyed yet still pulsating with energy. I feel like this was me coming into my own.” It was also a milestone marker that showcased Martin’s exquisite attention to detail. It examined the ingenuity of construction and the finesse of the skilled, traditional craftsmanship that runs throughout her work. This runs counter to the provocative concepts that continue to rock the jewellery status quo.
In between these collections, Martin has taken on various design collaborations, including for Chaumet and Louis Vuitton, and her successful Pierced collection has toured the world at piercing events from Los Angeles to Singapore. There were tough times, she says, when the idea of a good salary was tempting. Yet, remarkably, Martin has never diverted from her path, never compromised, remaining utterly true to herself, her values and vision. It’s paid off: she has gathered a loyal celebrity clientele, an illustrious roll call that includes Keith Richards, Patti Smith, FKA twigs, Cara Delevingne, Erin O’Connor, Helen Mirren, Billie Piper, Kristin Scott Thomas and Wayne McGregor.
Hannah Martin in her London studio
Last year she launched A Vanitas, a collection created in collaboration with Guy Berryman, Coldplay’s bassist, a man in love with design who has his own fashion brand, Applied Art Forms. Martin tells how, in late 2021, she was disembarking from a flight to Los Angeles when she noticed a man wearing an earring that she recognised as one she had made. She couldn’t resist tapping him on the shoulder and telling him it was hers. As it turned out, the earring-wearer was Berryman, who told her he was actually thinking about creating a jewellery collection as part of Applied Art Forms. And so, A Vanitas was born.
The collection is inspired by 17th-century Dutch Vanitas (Latin for vanity) paintings. They had a message of mortality and were conceived as a call to arms, aiming to embrace every moment and live each one to the full. In both silver and gold, and resolutely gender-blended, the capsule collection, which is sold through Dover Street Market, features stylised razorblades and pearls hand-carved as skulls. Now, with her latest and most audacious collection The Perfect Drug, Martin lays bare her soul and opens her heart. Having seen it broken by a failed love affair, she is now experiencing the joy and intensity of surfacing from the pain. Martin tells of a revelatory moment in the mosh pit at a Nine Inch Nails concert where she experienced the ecstasy of feeling fully alive again. The Perfect Drug, named after the band’s 1997 song, is intended as an antidote to what Martin sees as ‘numbness’ caused by digital overload, by the assault of information and stimuli, by the generalised separation from physicality, and most of all by addiction. A celebration of life and living, of feeling, pain, joy and, crucially, love, the collection offers up jewels that she says are “unsafe”, risky and risqué, taking her signature edginess even closer to the edge. They draw on wide-ranging inspirations, from the cerebrally elegant to the erotic and fetishistic: sculptures by Constantin Brâncusi, Isamu Noguchi and Tony Cragg, Man Ray’s nudes, Tom of Finland’s gay erotica and, true to her roots, Vivienne Westwood’s punk ethos.
from left: Liquid Harness chainmail necklace in yellow gold and Martin takes inspiration for these rings from sculptures by Constantin Brâncusi, Isamu Noguchi and Tony Cragg, Man Ray’s nudes, Tom of Finland’s gay erotica and Vivienne Westwood’s punk ethos
The jewels, created for the first time in a mix of gold and silver, will, she hopes, deliver a sensual, voluptuous experience and generate a visceral and emotional thrill through their suggestive references and intimate interactions with the body. As ever, in a perfect fusion of rebellion and refinement, Martin has pushed goldsmithing skills and explored technical ingenuity to achieve her signature contrasts and contradictions. There is a fleshy voluptuousness and sexy tactility, a sense of connectivity, that she wanted to capture. The pieces are sublimely silky chainmail, sexy but armour-like, with a supple yet mechanical movement of articulated straps. Fastened and connected with studs, hinting at bondage, they are colossal golden spheres whose curves roll against the skin, on the wrist or throat. She has even created spiky cock rings to hang as pendants on chain or chainmail. As ever, the materials elevate the theme and mix of metals, while the use of steely grey diamonds, wood and moonstones add the tactile, textural contrast she envisaged. At the same time, the pieces create a greyscale colouration like a black and white photograph, against which the exuberance of life is heightened and intensified.
“After 20 years, I realised that the biggest rebellion comes from being and feeling alive, amid all the dark stuff. I put everything out there: vulnerability, honesty, authenticity. My heartbreak collection became my joy collection.” Hannah Martin’s Perfect Drug became an ode to life and love.
from left: All Access Earrings in white and yellow gold, The Full Spectrum Ring in carved stone gold and chainmail, Strapped Stone Ring in gold and obsidian and All Access Bracelet and Fluid Strap Chain in yellow gold chainmail
Photography by Joshua Tarn. Taken from 10+ Issue 7 – DECADENCE, MORE, PLEASURE – out NOW. Order your copy here.
