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The Ocean, Refracted
Finding Paua shells at Cape Palliser felt like unearthing the ocean’s private art collection — each one a masterpiece of iridescence, painted by light and biology in equal measure. Working with Paua always feels like a privilege: that shimmer isn’t just beauty, it’s physics — light refracted through microscopic layers of aragonite, a structure so strong chemists still marvel at it.
In Māori culture, Paua is more than a shell — it’s the stone of the ancestors, guiding safe passage across the sea. And I wanted these earrings to honour both those stories — the scientific and the spiritual.
So I kept the design simple: Paua (actually from the Chatham Islands) paired with tiny Indian amethysts and Australian chrysoprase, set in a 22k gold-plated frame. At just 5.7 centimetres, they’re whisper-light, yet carry the deep voice of the ocean.
Because like Paua itself, they don’t shout — they gleam.
