Plastic fantastic organic jewellery by Tonya O’Hara
British designer Tonya O’Hara building on the pioneering design formed from pre- and post-consumer recycled plastic by designers such as Patagonia who create fleece jackets, to Melissa who metamorphose it into avant garde shoes, has created an iconic jewellery collection from discarded plastic . O’Hara takes salvaged PET plastic bottles and slices and shapes each piece by hand. The result- contemporary, elegant wearable art …that is a lyrical as it is covetable.
Each piece in O’ Hara’s PET : cell collection is handmade using a unique heat-forming method that doesn’t affect the inherent qualities of the material and allows the plastic to stay transparent.
O’Hara’s love for jewellery making surfaced during her studies at Loughborough University and the School of Jewellery in Birmingham. O’Hara’s vision for her own collection was firmly in place as she graduated but first she had to raise the money to be able to make the pieces.. After eight years of teaching at secondary schools, unwavering focus and dedicated saving O’Hara finally founded PET:cell in 2010.
Her first collection features natural organic forms -inspired rings, earrings and bangles—all made from recycled PET plastic. She explains her vision “It has very much been an amalgamation of the many things in life that excite me, I have had for many years a fascination with transparency and microscopic organisms but also a desire to create something very precious out of something very ordinary.”
O’Hara is already developing concepts and ideas for her next collection. “I’m developing a new range which will focus further on transparency and texture; necklaces and headpieces will also be introduced,” she says.
Finding Eco loves her vision, her delicate organic forms and the fact that thanks to O’Hara’s vision we can wear PET plastic with pride knowing that every piece of the collection means there is one less plastic bottle in a landfill.
Definitely feeding the soul without starving our planet….an eco icon to wear with pride!
