Light under lacquer

Mother-of-pearl inlay is known in Chinese as luodian: luo for the shell, dian for inlaid decoration. Craftsmen in China have set shell into lacquer for close to three thousand years, and the finest work, with shell ground almost as thin as paper, shimmers like silk as it turns in the light.

The work starts with the shell itself. Its inner layer, the nacre, is ground into thin sheets, then cut into petals, leaves and slivers so small they are moved with tweezers. Each piece is laid into a lacquer ground following a drawing, and more lacquer is brushed over the top.

Once the lacquer has cured, the surface is sanded and polished back until the shell appears again, level with the lacquer around it. This is why an inlaid pendant feels completely smooth under a fingertip, and why the colour seems to sit inside it rather than on top.

For our pendant and studs, the inlay is made at the artisan's bench and then set in gold vermeil or sterling silver. No two come out the same, because no two shells are the same.