Tabayer’s Watchword: Protection
Tabayer renews the apotropaic function of amulets, transferring values and shapes from the past into jewelry that embraces the skin as well as sustainability principles
Closer to the art of sculpture than decoration, Tabayer's jewelry is designed to encase the power and magic of a traditional amulet in particularly recognizable contemporary shapes. A contemporaneity that passes inescapably through a profound sense of ethics. «Tabayer is rooted in the principle of protection. Therefore, Tabayer's ethics are also about protecting the Earth and its communities against the corrosive influence of environmental exploitation,» explains founder Nigora Tokhtabayeva, who entrusts in Italian master goldsmiths to manufacture the items, all made from certified gold and diamonds. Chosen to limit the considerable ecological and environmental damage caused by industrial mining processes, Fairmined gold is sourced from artisan mining organizations that follow strict labor and safety guidelines and are committed to promoting social development and environmental protection, while the strictly conflict-free and Kimberley Process certified diamonds are purchased through retailers who can ensure a network of trusted partners along the supply chain, all controlled and certified by the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC). The strict rules of a production that is particularly attentive to respect for the environment and people are exactly what form the basis of a “platonic” aesthetic, dispensed through fluid tubular shapes obtained through a game of curves and voids. Tokhtabayeva, who was born in Uzbekistan and then spent her formative years in the United States, reformulates ancient iconography through the principles of the modernist sculpture of Isamu Noguchi, Alexander Archipenko, Jackie Windsor and Barbara Hepworth, managing to infuse her original creations with an innovative idea of jewelry as an expression of spiritual and cultural awareness, full of visual references.