Asian jewelry designers who have for years lifted ‘ancient’ designs now have much time to catch up with their innovative European counterparts, says goldsmith Michale Zobel.

            Zobel, who describes his jewelry as modern classical, only manufactures “unusual and unique” pieces which inevitably put them in the middle-to high-price range. “Cheap jewelry is not possible,” said the 48-year-old artisan, also a prize winner at the 1989 International Design Competition “Juwelenschmuck der 90er Jahre” in Hanau, West Germany.

            At the moment, Zobel favors emeralds and lapis lazuli on precious metals. For inspiration, he returns again and again to nature, whose “designs are beyond our reach.”

            Above all, Zobel says he tries to be honest with himself, developing his own concept and “not to seek only financial success.”