12
A. Cappellieri et al.
Hand manufacturing and mechanized production, respectively, hand and machine,
have marked and settled over time two opposite ways of creating and therefore
conceiving jewellery: from the one side the manufactured object, aimed at an elite
and associated with luxury; on the other side the piece of jewellery industrially
produced, addressed to the mass market.
The current revolution has marked the transition has globally fluidified the system: in the age of digital technology, the distinction among the different spheres is
increasingly less defined, the productive paradigms tend to blend and to contaminate each other, reducing progressively the antithetical distance between hand and
machine. Even though the dichotomy is still representing a significant characterizing
element for the jewellery field, the boundaries between the two different production
processes are becoming more and more blurred and the cases of a hybrid approach
are more frequent [18].
The artisanal practice of making jewellery is in fact more often integrated with
the use of digital technologies, such as the one of additive manufacturing, and the
creative processes are shared online. The precision and careful attention to details that
has characterized traditional jewellery making can be flanked by a new dimension,
that is the one of the web, considered not only as a network of processes and data but
as an integrated and interactive system that holds together people and things. In this
context, small- and micro-companies, using new flexible production technologies,
are able to produce small batches or even unique pieces, customized with different
finishes, so as to be able to combine artisanal quality with industrial processes.
To this end, some interesting case studies are Bijouets and Maison 203, two of the
main Italian companies that have introduced 3D printing technologies into jewellery
without neglecting craftsmanship quality and formal beauty. All the 3D printed pieces
are rigorously finished by hand and conceived by professionals coming from other
sectors, such as architecture and product design, who contribute in terms of crossfertilization as well as contemporary aesthetics. The result is a rich and varied production that intersects design, technological experimentation and craftsmanship [3].
Bijouets, founded in Trento by Ignazio Pomini and Fabio Ciciani in 2010, is
dedicated to making accessories with professional 3D printing techniques. Pomini
immediately understands the potential of this jewellery technology and, with the
creative direction of Selvaggia Armani and with the contribution of different designers such as Federico Angi, Filippo Mambretti or Maria Jennifer Carew, Bijouets
becomes a reference for 3D jewellery at an international level.
Another Italian company of reference is Maison 203, which represents one of
the most interesting examples of digital craftsmanship of accessories in nylon and
PLA (a bioplastic derived from corn starch), to which are added special editions in
steel and polished brass. The company was founded in Treviso in 2011 by designers
Orlando Fernandez Flores and Lucia De Conti and design is one of the fundamental
ingredients of their production, which relies on the collaboration of the best Italian
designers such as Odoardo Fioravanti, Giorgio Biscaro and Giulio Iacchetti.
If the jewellery of Bijouets and of Maison 203 are declined according to the
languages of fashion, other designers choose 3D printing to make artistic jewellery
pieces, as happens with Ross Lovegrove who created 3D printed gold items for the
A. Cappellieri et al.
Hand manufacturing and mechanized production, respectively, hand and machine,
have marked and settled over time two opposite ways of creating and therefore
conceiving jewellery: from the one side the manufactured object, aimed at an elite
and associated with luxury; on the other side the piece of jewellery industrially
produced, addressed to the mass market.
The current revolution has marked the transition has globally fluidified the system: in the age of digital technology, the distinction among the different spheres is
increasingly less defined, the productive paradigms tend to blend and to contaminate each other, reducing progressively the antithetical distance between hand and
machine. Even though the dichotomy is still representing a significant characterizing
element for the jewellery field, the boundaries between the two different production
processes are becoming more and more blurred and the cases of a hybrid approach
are more frequent [18].
The artisanal practice of making jewellery is in fact more often integrated with
the use of digital technologies, such as the one of additive manufacturing, and the
creative processes are shared online. The precision and careful attention to details that
has characterized traditional jewellery making can be flanked by a new dimension,
that is the one of the web, considered not only as a network of processes and data but
as an integrated and interactive system that holds together people and things. In this
context, small- and micro-companies, using new flexible production technologies,
are able to produce small batches or even unique pieces, customized with different
finishes, so as to be able to combine artisanal quality with industrial processes.
To this end, some interesting case studies are Bijouets and Maison 203, two of the
main Italian companies that have introduced 3D printing technologies into jewellery
without neglecting craftsmanship quality and formal beauty. All the 3D printed pieces
are rigorously finished by hand and conceived by professionals coming from other
sectors, such as architecture and product design, who contribute in terms of crossfertilization as well as contemporary aesthetics. The result is a rich and varied production that intersects design, technological experimentation and craftsmanship [3].
Bijouets, founded in Trento by Ignazio Pomini and Fabio Ciciani in 2010, is
dedicated to making accessories with professional 3D printing techniques. Pomini
immediately understands the potential of this jewellery technology and, with the
creative direction of Selvaggia Armani and with the contribution of different designers such as Federico Angi, Filippo Mambretti or Maria Jennifer Carew, Bijouets
becomes a reference for 3D jewellery at an international level.
Another Italian company of reference is Maison 203, which represents one of
the most interesting examples of digital craftsmanship of accessories in nylon and
PLA (a bioplastic derived from corn starch), to which are added special editions in
steel and polished brass. The company was founded in Treviso in 2011 by designers
Orlando Fernandez Flores and Lucia De Conti and design is one of the fundamental
ingredients of their production, which relies on the collaboration of the best Italian
designers such as Odoardo Fioravanti, Giorgio Biscaro and Giulio Iacchetti.
If the jewellery of Bijouets and of Maison 203 are declined according to the
languages of fashion, other designers choose 3D printing to make artistic jewellery
pieces, as happens with Ross Lovegrove who created 3D printed gold items for the