For those not yet familiar with the droll accessories of Central Saint Martins grad Marisa Jiwi Seok’s jewellery label Jiwinaia, you’re going to want to get acquainted STAT.
Made in Italy and loved by the likes of Petra Collins, Sharmadean Rein, stylist Anna Trevelyan and Kali Uchis, her playful trinkets are fantastically millennial. She calls on Microsoft clip art for inspiration, makes Felix the Cat a veritable style icon and reinvents candy dummies as crystal earrings. And, now she’s bringing her irreverent eye to handbags.
In collaboration with everyone’s favourite backpack brand, Eastpak, the Milanese-Korean designer has made a collection of belt bags and side pouches. She told Vogue that she’d like to, ‘change Eastpak’s classic bags into portable jewels’. She's certainly done just that.
This is a collection for when you want to go out-out, but a clutch seems fussy and an evening bag makes you think of your mum. For, evenings spent sweaty dancing and early mornings on the night bus home. This is a collection for 2017 girls.
Calling on her heritage, she embellished a set of pouch bags with ‘Korean mother-of-pearl souvenirs, like the little compact mirrors’. To integrate the essence of her own brand she called on a mixture of her aesthetic and her roots. Keeping the silhouettes of Eastpak’s popular accessories untouched, she added elements like a velvet top to a belt bag and Swarovski crystals to the zipper or a faux-fur handle to a pouch bag that’s adorned with a Korean-inspired compact. On one bag there’s silver-plated chopsticks made into handles finished with 20-sided dice, which reference Marisa’s love of Dungeons & Dragons.
The pieces will be available on Jiwinaia’s own website, which is launching imminently, Farfetch.com and Wok Store from tomorrow.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.