There aren’t many jewellery labels that can boast of having been featured in the most disparate publications, from food magazines to the website of the Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) association, but Kali Arulpragasam’s Super Fertile is, after all, a rather unconventional jewellery brand.
Tackling in her previous collections themes as disparate as the world food crisis (‘Hunger’), countries affected by war (‘Tourism’) and animals in danger of going extinct (‘Endangered Species’), Kali’s pieces inspire both fashion-oriented articles and longer essays about vital contemporary issues. Super Fertile’s new collection is entitled ‘The Real Super Stars’ and it’s a reaction to our celebrity-dominated world. Rather than paying homage to the stars who everyday haunt the pages of newspapers and magazines, the Internet and our TV screens, Kali decided to dedicate her latest collection to 10 inventors and scientists who have enhanced our lives. Among them there are also Christiaan Barnard (heart transplant), Alec Jeffreys (DNA fingerprinting), Garrett Morgan (traffic lights) and John Shepherd-Barron (ATM machine and pin).
Luxury jewellery might be for an elite market, but Super Fertile’s pieces are not regal ornaments. As the lookbook photos for the brand’s new collection prove - shot in India and showing ordinary people wearing Super Fertile designs surrounded by the invention Kali paid tribute to - they are indeed for everyone, or at least for all those people out there who want to spread a global message and make a bold statement. What’s precious about Super Fertile’s contemporary urban talismans is not the jewellery itself, Kali highlights, but the final message.
The quick Q&A with Kali that follows is an extract from a longer interview that will be featured in the next issue of Zoot Magazine (Spring/Summer 09 – available from May), in the meantime, you can also read my interview with Kali on Dazed Digital.
Question: Did you follow any jewellery design courses before launching your brand?
Kali Arulpragasam: When I started Super Fertile I thought that maybe I had to do it in order to be taken seriously, so I enrolled for an MA at Central Saint Martins. But I went there feeling that I wanted to learn the ropes on my own and didn’t want to spend time analysing what I did or explaining why I did it. While I was studying for my MA course I got an email from the New York Times, asking me to give them one sentence that could describe my next collection and I remember going into this interview at the college, mentioning it and asking the tutor if I should have actually done the course. They suggested me to keep on working on what I was doing, which I thought was nice of them. I prefer the way I’m learning now from the new problems I come up with and I like trying to tackle them with my collaborators. I think it works better for me in this way. Besides, because I don’t have a jewellery background, I have a new approach to things and I’m always trying to use new materials.
Question: Who is Super Fertile’s ideal customer?
Kali Arulpragasam: I really want everyone to enjoy what I do and I don’t want to think of my brand as something for just one type of person. This is reflected also in my lookbooks: the most recent one was shot in India and shows ordinary people wearing Super Fertile’s designs surrounded by the inventions I paid tribute to. In every collection I do I try to question three things: I wonder if the design of a piece is new and fresh, if a piece is wearable and, last but no least, if the message it spreads is relevant. I don’t want Super Fertile to be pigeonholed in a box, as I think that art is for everyone and fashion is art.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Comments