Fibres of Meaning

A Collaboration with Claudia Alarcón

Our first artist collaboration turns to the source of our creations, the Earth. The practice of creating high jewellery centres on celebrating stones formed over millions of years by the Earth, and harnessing their striking beauty to craft masterpieces that enchant. A similar process occurs for Wíchi textile artist Claudia Alarcón, with whom we are honoured to present our first ever artist collaboration. It is also the first time fine art textiles have ever been encased in high jewellery objects.

Necklace I

Claudia Alarcón’s weavings are a nexus of significance. The ancestral practice of hand-weaving the spun fibres of local chaguar plants, whose juices are used as natural dyes, is a core component of Wíchi culture handed down through untold generations of women. According to Wíchi tradition, women descended from the stars nightly along chaguar threads they themselves wove; chaguar weavings have remained central to Wichi culture for hundreds of years, and it was from this origin point that Claudia Alarcón’s artistic practice grew.

Claudia uses weaving to communicate myth, beauty, and power by creating works that collect and compile meaning as they travel through time and place as they simultaneously witness and embody histories. Her works mobilise tradition to imbue viewers and collectors with the energy embodied in her pieces, leaving signatures of intention and life in the journeys her pieces take. This process begins with the Earth, and continues through the process of creation through to the finished piece and its life as an object. Alarcón’s exhibition Claudia Alarcón & Silät: Living, Weaving at Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP) opened in March 2026.

Resplendor Pendant

Our collaboration with Claudia further mobilises the Wíchi tradition by encasing privately commissioned weavings in Allison Quaid high jewellery creations. Uniting the process of weaving with the workmanship of our goldsmiths, we combined centuries-old Wíchi tradition with our century in the world of high jewellery through a synergy of material, style, and form that is the first high jewellery piece ever made that encases a fine art textile.

In Necklace I, this takes the form of a hexagonal encasement featuring pear and baguette shaped colourless diamonds and vibrant yellow sapphires. These speak to the geometry and expansiveness of Alarcón’s weaving practice, expanding a geometric form she often incorporates in her weavings. The yellow sapphires echo the yellow in the weaving, making a clear display of how we both take nature and the colours it affords us as a basis for creation. Similarly, natural saltwater pearls embody the warm white of the weaving, whilst the black silk threads linking the pearls represent the black in the weaving.

The Resplendor Pendant honours Alarcón’s first artistic textile, whose title is Resplendor (Radiance). Using magenta, yellow, and black threads, Alarcón created a design that references the Sun’s glow. As jewellers, our practice also centres on light, particularly the way diamonds shine as they are worn and turned in one’s hand. Yellow gold was selected for the weaving’s encasement due to its warm radiance which mirrors that of the weaving while diamonds of varying size represent a constellation in reference to Resplendor‘s cosmic theme.

The process of crafting the first high jewellery pieces encasing fine art textiles entailed months of research and testing by our master goldsmiths. In our London workshop, we developed an advanced mechanism to protect Alarcón’s weaving, entirely encasing the commissioned sample with a level of precision and technical mastery characteristic of the world’s leading jewellery craftspeople.

Claudia also leads the Silät collective, a group of over 100 Wíchi woman weavers from the Gran Chaco region of northern Salta, Argentina. She is a member of the Union Textiles Semillas, a group of weavers, artists, and activists highlighting the work of textile artists from northern Argentina. Her work was included in the 2024 Venice Biennale and the Arts of the Earth exhibition at the Museo Guggenheim Bilbão. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), Denver Art Museum, and Minneapolis Institute of Art. She is represented by James Cohan, New York; Cecilia Brunson Projects, London; and Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala. In 2025, she was named the ARTnews Emerging Artist of the Year.