Mïla Kanashiro

Inspiration and Concept My idea of traveling is based on the journey of swallows. Those birds fly together thousand miles around the world to find warmer places, but they always go back home, to the same nest, since their sense of direction is great. This journey is related to my personal experience, I'm Brazilian, now living in Italy and no matter where I go there's no place like my home, Brazil. I will always go back home. Swallows are also a symbol of good luck, fertility, renovation and the most important: love. Once they find a partner, they stick together forever.

Sketches Here are some of the sketches for the swallows shape, and then some studies using paper swallows placed on different wire shapes to define the final piece.

Technical Drawings The necklace has swallows designed in 2 shapes, in 3 sizes, the bigger one is the pendant. In one of the edges of the necklace, there is a diamond in pear shape, which represents "home". The swallows have brilliants (2.5 mm size) touching their edges. The pendant is joined to the wire with a small and delicate chain. All the birds are weld on the wire, so they don't slide over the wire.

Final Rendering This is how the final piece would look like, in gold and brilliants.

Prototype The prototype was made using memory-shape wire, swallows were cut by hand, and Swarovski crystals placed using glue.