PRESS RELEASE: Bright New Gems 2026 Winners – set to shape the future of our industry

Bright New Gems, the industry mentoring platform that promotes the best in new talent, has selected this year’s six MA and BA graduate winners.  This is a very strong group of winners – chosen by the judges for their creativity and originality.

Over the past 21 years the programme has supported 104 Bright New Gems designers, enabling them to showcase their work to the industry, retailers and opinion formers as they take their first steps on their career path.

A record number of applications were received from graduating designers from eleven UK universities and colleges - Birmingham City University,  Bishopsland Educational Trust, Carmarthen School of Art, Central Saint Martins,  Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD), Edinburgh College of Art, Glasgow School of Art, Hereford College of Art, Royal College of Art, University of Brighton and the University of the Creative Arts . 

The entries were judged across two categories – Responsible Thinking, Sustainable Eco Heroes and Show Off, Statement Pieces

Winners : Show Off - Statement Pieces

Designs and /or finished pieces showing creative flair with innovative use of materials and which demonstrate potential commercial viability

Katherine Campbell-Howard

Birmingham City University School of Jewellery, BA

@kitty.campbellhoward

Katherine Campbell-Howard is a jewellery designer and maker specialising in contemporary fine jewellery inspired by natural forms and structural beauty. Working across the entire design process, she develops concepts through hand sketching, technical drawing and CAD before bringing each piece to life through traditional bench techniques, including stone setting and finishing. Her work combines technical precision with sculptural design, craftsmanship and innovation.

Velare is inspired by the quiet beauty of transformation in nature, particularly the skeletal forms of decaying leaves. Their delicate structures reveal hidden strength and intricate patterns, influencing sculptural silhouettes that envelop pearls. The collection celebrates protection, renewal and the elegance found in organic forms shaped by time and change.

Veil Ring, Velare Collection

Silver, gold plate,  Freshwater Pearls, Cubic Zirconia, synthetic Spinel

Kyra Xu

Central St Martins, BA

 @jewellery_by_kyraxu

Kyra Xu creates dramatic pieces that transform the body and challenge conventional ideas of adornment.

Rooted in science fiction and imagined forms of life, her work explores how jewellery can alter the wearer’s appearance, building characters and visual identities that blur the boundary between the human and the otherworldly.

Designed for editorial and runway contexts, her pieces are built to command attention. She asks not just how we adorn ourselves, but what we might become.

Metamorphosis imagines an extraterrestrial organism attaching itself to a human host and gradually transforming the body into a human–insect hybrid. Drawing from insect anatomy, the collection combines traditional metalwork with 3D printing and mixed-media techniques. The large-scale wearable pieces alter the body itself, creating new silhouettes and transforming the wearer into imagined creatures.

Diabolon Helm – 3D printed headpiece/eyewear  Metamorphosis

Plant based resin, UV resin, Electroplated PLA, Angelina film, Chrome powder, Stainless steel

Aya Al-shalal

Central St Martins, MA

@iyuhstudios

Aya Alshalal is an Iraqi-Canadian jewellery designer and multidisciplinary artist, whose practice sits at the intersection of contemporary jewellery, craft, and cultural research, informed by her family's history of preserving tribal and Bedouin jewellery, silversmithing, textiles, and material culture from Iraq and the wider SWANA region. Through sculptural forms and digital processes, she reinterprets endangered Iraqi and Bedouin jewellery traditions, exploring how ancestral knowledge can evolve for contemporary fashion cultures and diasporic communities.

Her collection is inspired by endangered Iraqi and Bedouin jewellery traditions and the women who carried them across generations. Through sculptural forms, traditional craft, and bold visually heavy pieces, she explores how cultural heritage can be preserved, reimagined, and worn within contemporary fashion and diasporic digital subcultures.

NIYYA Earrings

Silver Plated Copper

Winners:  Responsible Thinking - Sustainable Eco-Heroes

Designs and/or finished pieces made with responsibly sourced or sustainable materials to reflect the growing demand and interest in sustainability.  These pieces should demonstrate potential commercial viability.

Madhawi Alzuabi

Central St Martins, BA

@modawi_f

Madhawi Alzuabi is a Saudi contemporary jewellery designer whose practice is driven by curiosity, experimentation, innovation, and material exploration. She investigates ideas of value and preciousness through overlooked materials with cultural significance. Her work explores the relationship between material, memory, identity, and culture, allowing materials to guide the making process and reveal new possibilities.

Inspired by her father’s date palm farm in Saudi Arabia, Madhawi Alzuabi transforms discarded date seeds into jewellery, exploring their cultural meaning and material potential. Nawa Necklace I uses date seeds and silk thread, while Nawa Rings combine date seed with gold-plated brass, bringing an overlooked material into contemporary jewellery.

Nawa Necklace I

Date seeds, Silk thread

Hana Mulaku

Central St Martins, BA

@hana.mulaku

Hana Mulaku, a London-based jewellery designer,  takes the overlooked — a discarded shell, an in-between shape, a detail that doesn't announce itself — and holds it under pressure until it gives something back. Drawn to contrast and to the in-between, she makes pieces that don't give themselves away immediately: pieces that make you look twice, that raise a question before they answer it. Working in gold plated silver and reclaimed materials, Hana is less interested in the obvious than in what sits just beneath it or right in between it. Her debut collection Cultivated, exhibited at Dover Street Market Summer Exhibition 2026 and featured in the Financial Times, began with just that: discarded oyster shell.

Inspired by aerial photographs of oyster farms, Mulaku's pieces translate graphic geometry into form. Low Tide echoes the articulated racks of cultivation; Held takes its line from the stakes young oysters are first tied to. Both in gold plated sterling silver, white topaz and oyster shell.

Held Ring, Cultivated

Gold plated silver and Oyster Shell

Ana Luisa Braun

Central St Martins

@analuisabraun

Born in Brasília and based in London, Ana Luisa Braun is a jewellery artist whose sculptural practice draws on the bold geometry and sinuous curves of Brazilian modernism. Her work brings together architectural clarity, material sensitivity and a distinctly contemporary femininity, drawing from materials rooted in Brazilian landscapes and traditional craft. Her perspective has also been shaped by her time in Paris, where she studied and worked within the luxury industry, including at Chanel, and by her training in gemmology at the Gemmological Institute of America.

Drawing on Brasília’s modernist architecture, Ana Luisa Braun transforms Brazilian natural materials, such as golden grass and colour-infused fish scales meticulously finished to achieve a velvety surface, into sculptural jewellery. Her work brings architectural form into dialogue with vernacular craft, challenging conventional ideas of luxury, preciousness and craftsmanship.

Multiple Scale Pieces, Shimmer

18K gold-plated sterling silver, naturally dyed and specially treated fish scales

The judging process

Maria Doulton, Judge and Editor-in-chief/Co-founder of The Jewellery Editor explains the judging process,   “The judges  work independently to go through the entries, of which there are more each year. The process is lengthy because the standard of design and often execution is so high. There is a huge variety of concepts to take into account. Good photography is helpful as are concise descriptions of the pieces. Given the amount of entries and the breadth of the work, it is surprising that the judges are almost totally unanimous in their choices. This is even more surprising as the judges come from different backgrounds: jewellers, an industry consultant, a retail buyer, and in my case, a journalist. What we all agree on is that creativity is thriving and that each year brings a new wave of future stars that deserve the support and recognition of the BNG awards.”

Judging Panel 2026:

The judging panel is made up of influential industry and consumer editors and experts in the sector – all of whom bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the panel and include:

Ruby Beales, jewellery buyer at Liberty London

Tomasz Donocik, award winning designer and 2006 Bright New Gem. 

Maria Doulton, Editor-in-chief/Co-founder of The Jewellery Editor

Liz Olver MA RCA, Independent Jewellery Consultant

Susi Smither, jewellery designer and responsible and sustainable industry expert . Founder of both The Rock Hound, East London’s Gemmologist Jeweller and Fair Luxury collective.

The support from the industry is so valuable and we are grateful to the National Association of Jewellers for their dedicated mentoring, Retail Jeweller for providing support and a showcase at the forthcoming  Retail Jewellery Festival in February 2027, The Goldsmiths’ Centre for opening ‘Getting Started’ up to the winners, and to Jewel Ads for their ongoing online support, including showcasing the winners and their work in the lead-up to the 2027 Jewellery Festival.

For further information please contact Jennifer Hall-Thompson on 07932 690678 or email hello@brightnewgems.com