Beauty in a can: new jewelry collection by Anabela Chan

The statement Rainbow Magnolia earrings from Anabela Chan’s new fine jewelry collection, Blooms, are a vision from an indulgent daydream. A wild, exotic flower from a fantasy world, caught in the long hair of an elusive nymph.

Aluminum is much lighter than gold, which makes it possible for the artist to conceptualize and create sizable, dramatic pieces without worrying that they might permanently ruin the wearer’s ears. Fashioned from recycled rainbow-hued aluminum and gold vermeil, laboratory-grown trillion- and cushion-cut emeralds, pavé-set canary and white diamonds, peridots, tourmalines and emeralds, with detachable flower studs, they seem to defy laws of gravity.

To turn trash into treasure, in the truest sense of the word, Anabela Chan recycles aluminum cans, giving them new lives in her dreamy creations.

The cans are cut and melted at extreme temperatures to remove impurities and excessive porosity and create a smooth surface for the application of rich, vivid colors. The lava-like, sizzling metal is then poured into ingots to obtain the delicate petals, which are later color-treated using a method known as physical vapor deposition, a process in which the material goes from a condensed phase to vapor and back to the condensed phase, producing a thin film on the surface.

As complicated and technical as it may sound, the results are always elegant, exhilarating and jolly.

On top of all that, in their mischievous yet extremely thoughtful approach to luxury jewelry, Anabela Chan and her team pursue ethical sustainability: they use only lab-grown stones of the highest quality, with all the beauty and optical qualities of natural gems, but untainted by armed conflict, poor working conditions, risks to human lives and other mining-related safety and environmental hazards.

See for yourself: can you spot a can in this miraculous beauty?