Fine jewelry designers tackle sustainability in Protagonist event

A proporition of the proceeds will go to support international conservation charity Space for Giants

Alexandra Mor, Creative Director of The Protagonist, as "The Girl with the Tagua Earrings." Photo by Kevin Hatt.

The Protagonist began in 2014 as a showcase of the very best of American fine jewelry design. Vogue Italia curates the event, as the magazine’s unique selection of contemporary designers shaking the international fine jewelry scene – a veritable “who’s who” of renegade artists.

In the 2017 Protagonist, the selected jewelry designers were challenged to create pieces of fine jewelry using the tagua seed, the botanical alternative to elephant ivory. Alexandra Mor, fine jewelry designer and 2018 Creative Director of the Protagonist, developed the concept after seeing a documentary regarding the elephant poaching crisis. Tagua seeds grow wild in the Amazon forest. It’s physical properties are nearly identical to elephant ivory. By introducing tagua as a fine jewelry material, the event offered a solution to the poaching of elephants for their tusks.

For the 2018 edition of the Protagonist, led by event Creative Director Alexandra Mor, the 14 designer will tackle the wider issue of responsible sourcing, which entails using natural (non-synthetic) materials like sustainable woods, ethically mined gemstones, eco-farmed pearls, leather alternatives, and recycled precious metals.

10% of the proceeds from the Protagonist sales will go to Space For Giants, an international conservation organisation that protects the great wildlife landscapes that Africa's wildlife needs to thrive. Space for Giants believes habitat loss is not only a conservation crisis. It is also a human crisis.

The Protagonist jewelry collections will be unveiled at an exclusive event at Christies New York on 10 Dec and will be for sale on fashionkind.com from 13 December.