A Japanese in Paris, there and back: Natsuko Toyofuku, a designer who works and lives in Milan, presented a selection of her jewels at the Maison & Objet exhibition, about eighty pieces, those found in the atelier at Via della Pergola 8, in the Isola district. The taste for creating jewels that look like works of art is, perhaps, the legacy of her father, Tomomori Toyofuku, a well-known sculptor between the 1960s and 1970s. Natsuko usually uses metals such as silver, bronze, copper, mainly lost-wax casting, combined with glass, wood, semiprecious stones or coral. Her favorite metal is bronze: «It has a warm tone and can take on extraordinary patinas if you use careful polishing, which does not deprive the metal surfaces of the natural shading that gives charm to the material. Even the white pearl can acquire beauty from the combination with bronze». Enamels were added to metals, bringing surprising colors: red, yellow, turquoise, green. In addition, rare stones, mainly of Brazilian or African origin, are often set in bronze: lemon, orange, or rutilated quartz, ludolites, dendrites, turquoise roots, aquamarines, tourmalines.
