Untamed

An investigation into how the industrial revolution brought rapid change to North East England. Considering how Middlesbrough’s natural resources and developments in the Stockton-Darlington railway contributed to immense population growth, from 25 people in 1801, to 90,000 people by the turn of the twentieth century. In this period the North East became one of the biggest producers of Iron and steel in the world, and referred to as ‘Ironopolis’. My designs reference photographs from the explosive furnaces in Middlesbrough and Cleveland used to create molten iron and steel. The collection captures the tension between the stillness of the old in contrast to the dynamic, untamed energy of industrialization. Each piece is made from yellow gold and speckled with flush set white diamonds, resembling the hot blasts and sparks exploding from the furnaces as iron and steel is created. Fading out to a black ruthenium plating to mimic the steel that was produced in the region.