Bromhead Paua Shell Jewellery
The ideas for their jewellery have been inspired from three main sources:
- The area where they live - its native forests and coastal areas, with the unique New Zealand plant, bird and animal life, combined with themes from traditional Maori designs.
- The unique Art nouveau work of an Australian jeweller during the 1920-30's era, Rhoda Wager.
- The amazing and underrated colours of the New Zealand Paua shell.
These components have come together, and using our skills, we have created a mix of traditional Maori and original art nouveau jewellery using gold, silver, precious, semi-precious and New Zealand paua shell that is refreshingly different.
PAUA SILVER RANGE
The silver used is known as, standard, Sterling or 925 Silver, that is 925 parts per 1000 of pure silver. The remaining metals are alloyed to give strength and durability. Each design is cast, quality checked, hand polished, set and finished, with a final quality check.
New Zealand Paua shell are a species of Abalone (Haliotis Iris) found in the coastal waters around New Zealand. This environment provides colours and patterns unique to New Zealand.
Paua laminate is New Zealand Paua shell, the natural Nacre, or coloured pearl surface, is stripped from the shell, and given a protective coating. Having Paua shell in this form allows it to be cut and shaped, with consistent quality. We have longed to lift the image of paua shell from ashtrays and cufflinks, to beautiful jewellery artworks. With the rich and natural colours retained, each piece is unique. We favour the natural and blue colours, but other tints are now available, which enhance our designs.
We also combine some of our standard designs with semi-precious beads, amythst, adventurine, garnets and natural pearls, their colours enhance and compliment the Paua shell colours.
The necklet range came about through Jenny's skill with colour, using Paua shell with semi-precious stones - for example the Art Nouveau pendant, showing two Native Wood Pigeons (Kereru) strung with garnet and adventurine beads, representing the native Puriri tree, with its red berries, (a favourite food of the Wood Pigeon).
Rick and Jenny can also customise jewellery on request.
