Yasuko Azuma

Childhood memories of growing up in Sapporo, Japan as well as prior training and careers as a fashion designer and as a dancer, all provide Yasuko Azuma with inspiration for her elegantly feminine and intricately detailed 18k gold jewellery collection.

Yasuko's love of fabrics, particularly vintage kimonos patterns and old world fans, informs her collections. This childhood passion led her to study fashion design in college. After graduation, she worked for a large apparel company in Japan.

In 1994, Yasuko moved to New York to pursue her dreams and began studying jewellery crafting and design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

During nine years, she kept creating pieces influenced by childhood memories, of her grandmother's garden for example, until she launched her own line in 2003.

Yasuko’s collection focuses on earthly delights, each of which are hand-carved and hand-finished. The changing of seasons is also a driving force in her collection.

She describes her “diamond dust” texture as “trying to capture the moment on an icy cold day in winter when the motion in the air sparkles when it freezes.” Yasuko replicates this feeling with light hammering which creates a glimmer of matte and shine.