Avery Bullwinkel is an American jewellery designer based in London. She holds a BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design and is currently completing an MA in Jewellery Design at Central Saint Martins.
Her practice explores urbanisation and industrial development, drawing on precise engineered forms and polished finishes. Working primarily in silver and leather, she creates bold, body-oriented accessories that translate infrastructure, movement and familiar American visual motifs into sculptural form.
Current Obsession: Could you tell us the story behind your graduation project and what drew you to the subject?
Avery Bullwinkel: This project explores contemporary America through the lens of the American dream and its impact on the automotive industry and the physical landscape built to sustain it.
Inspired by the way roadways have rapidly developed to overlay the natural landscape across the country, this collection mirrors that expansion, wrapping roadway and car-pipe motifs around the body in sculptural, architectural forms.
The work captures the tension between relentless development and innovation, and the strain that follows in its wake. Speed and momentum are conveyed through fluid, exhaust-pipe forms, each reverse-set with stones that taper to a point, evoking a sense of aerodynamism. Breakage, by contrast, surfaces in the soot-coloured rhodium plating of the Blown Motor necklace, and in the chaotic fringe sprawling outward from the cloverleaf belt buckle at the centre of the Highway belt.
Having grown up outside the United States, I was always struck by American car culture as something singular and fascinating – most vividly on long road trips along the highways between family houses during visits home. That early fascination grew into a deeper desire to dissect this facet of America, and to understand what it reveals about the country’s wider identity, both then and now.
CO: Beyond the gallery, where do you see your work taking root and finding its life? Who do you hope to reach with your work?
AB: This collection is designed for a wearer drawn to pieces that are bold, large-scale, and impossible to ignore.
The work is a study of contemporary American culture, taking inspiration from streetwear’s ability to translate current events, attitudes, and aesthetics into wearable, coded messages. Like pop art before it, streetwear has always taken its cues from the world around it, channelling the everyday into fashion and art.
Continuing this idea, I aim for this collection to function as a cultural diary – an ongoing, evolving body of research and commentary documenting the rapid changes faced by growing urban landscapes. Each piece becomes a record of overdevelopment: the speed of construction, the strain it places on the environment, and the architecture left behind as evidence. This is jewellery for a wearer who wants their accessories to carry weight and attitude.
CO: What’s your favourite studio ritual?
AB: My favourite studio ritual is the downtime while my pieces polish in the tumbler or sit in the pickle after soldering. That necessary break from active work gives me a feeling of freedom, space to have fun and experiment with ideas simmering in the back of my mind, whether that’s trying out a new patina or brainstorming with the scraps of metal left on my bench.
