Design was the first step I took to create Michelle Yuen Jewelry.
All jewelry from Michelle Yuen Jewelry is designed around opals, with every piece featuring this unique gemstone. The diversity and richness of opals' colors allow me, even when focusing solely on this one gemstone, to create jewelry with a wide variety of styles and designs.
The opal rings in Essence Collection were the brand's first collection. However, rather than calling it a complete design series, I would describe them as my "gemstone experiments." This was my first attempt at jewelry design, challenging myself to work with opals in different shapes — round, oval, marquise, square, and more. I hand-drew the design sketches, experimenting to find the perfect ratios and arrangements between the main stone and accent stones. After rounds of imagination and drawing, I finally reached a somewhat finalized stage — though my mind often found new inspirations and became dissatisfied with earlier designs.
When designing with a single main opal, the selection process is relatively straightforward. However, when a design involves multiple opals, selecting the stones becomes significantly more challenging. For instance, our two beloved Opal Band Rings brought me both tears and joy. I am delighted that they are so well-loved, but pairing and selecting the stones during the production process was quite an intense effort.
When I completed the design sketch for this ring, I suddenly felt it resembled the eye of the Ohmu from Hayao Miyazaki's Valley of the Wind — particularly the scene where Nausicaä finds an Ohmu shell in the Toxic Jungle, with snow-like particles floating around.
