Güneş Deniz is a Turkish jewelry designer who has lived abroad for a long time and then returned to Turkey to create her own brand with joyful pieces, combining over 1,000 years of the Grand Bazaar craftsmanship with inspirations from childhood memories and other artistic fields.
As the designer herself defines her pieces “the smallest expression of art”, we can see a contemporary touch played mainly by the material choices – colored enameled pieces - creating a refined storytelling that can range from the movement of furniture design to musical inspiration.
Güneş, how did you start designing your jewelry collections?
I knew I wanted to study something creative, but my parents forced me to take a Business Degree. I was kind of lost and felt out of place. During my third year of college I came back home for the Christmas holidays and every day I wondered “What am I going to do with my life?” without being able to find an answer, which was very frustrating. Then, I woke up one morning as if I had always known it and started designing jewelry. My instincts took me to the Grand Bazaar which has been a hub for jewelry making for over 1,000 years and there I met artisans who were so kind and willing to teach me how to make jewelry. During those Christmas holidays I did not meet any of my friends or take any time off, I was at the Grand Bazaar all day making jewelry. I spent my last night in the atelier, leaving at 5 am in the morning to take the flight back to Boston, with a collection of 15 pieces of jewelry in my backpack. Since then, I have never stopped.
Can you tell us how craftsmanship affects your pieces?
Craftsmanship makes a design look good or not. You may really like a design in a drawing or on a computer screen, but you only fall in love with it when you actually touch the piece and look at the details closely. I work with artisans specialized in their field, for example Kamer (the enameling craftsman) learned enameling from his father as a tradition and yet still today he is looking for new color combinations and enameling techniques. He has become a close friend of mine and we work on each piece together with love and devotion.
How does the selection of materials work when creating the collection?