Modern jewelry takes some getting used to, but wearers come around in time, says Belgian designer Anne Dierckxsens, who in earlier days experimented with butterfly wings and snakeskin on brooches and pendants.

            “In Europe, they have very strange and inexpensive jewelry and young people are looking for them to fit their personality,” said Anne, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. “When I design, I try to picture the person who will wear my jewelry.”

            Always with the wearer in mind, Anne says she designs for special people so that the jewelry becomes a unit with the person and also a part of the costume. “I want to make jewelry special, for different types of people.”

            Less is more, so Anne uses no more than three diamonds on each item to “pick the attention” of the wearer and the admirer. Also no more than a single pearl. Her favorite working materials are silver, gold, ivory, and “the most beautiful of all gems: diamonds.”

            Anne, at 31, is working on a 30-piece collection she hopes will be ready by year-end. The one woman show in Bangkok will raise not a few brows. “People have to see them to like them,” she said.