Design Spotlight: 'Stuffed' Pearl Studs from the Honourable Pig Collection
This week sees the drop of the final piece from the Honourable Pig Collection into the SAM HAM online shop, the ‘Stuffed’ Pearl Stud Earrings.
Saving the best for last, the launch of this new piggy-centric 13 piece collection completes with designer Sam’s favourite creation. In this blog, we’re taking a minute to shine a light on the inspiration and design process behind these understated studs.
A classic first glance…
On first glance at these earrings, the eye is met with a classically feminine combination found in many women’s jewellery boxes – a lustrous pearl stud backed on gold. A pairing that delivers a time-honoured, elegant look.
Take another look…
Peek a little closer and you’ll find that the gold backing actually forms a tiny piggy snout below which the pearl represents an iridescent gleaming apple stuffing its mouth.
That iconic image of a spit-roasted hog is one synonymous with greed and gluttony both with reference to the pig itself and the people that feast upon them.
How the ‘Stuffed’ pearl studs came to be
There were a number of factors that came together to influence the design of the ‘Stuffed’ studs. First was one of scale. In Sam’s own words –
“I love to play with scale in all of my collections because the size of a piece one wears is directly linked to the idea of how big a statement the wearer wants to make.
For me, whenever I walk into a room, I think how am I going to put myself out there and represent me? Jewellery was how I started expressing that as a teenager. At times I looked like a Christmas tree, decked out with absolutely everything hanging off me!
Now as I’m getting older, I don’t always necessarily want to take up all of the space in the room, so I try to apply that mentality to my jewellery as well, which is why I work with two different scales.
I make big and small versions of most items because you have big rebels with big voices but you also have more understated, quieter rebels. So, Tiny Ballz, big Ballz, big Snouts, little Snouts…
When it came to designing the ‘Stuffed’ pearl studs, I was looking at the collection and felt I was missing some smaller pieces. I’d designed the big Snout Face Piece, I’d designed the big signet rings and I wanted to work with the snout one more time but not repeat the shield concept again, which is what led me to pearls…”
Why pearls?
Along with her series of signature signet rings, there are a number of repeating motifs that run throughout Sam’s body of work:
“Whenever I start a new collection, I always decide what elements I’m going to carry on. So for instance, you will always find the Ballz t-bar repeating in my collections because it’s something that I try to carry through into each new collection. The pearl was what I carried through here.
Pearl earrings are a challenge in themselves. They are one of the first adult pieces of jewellery that I received when I was 12. Pearl earrings make you feel very grown up but they are a really conservative piece of jewellery. In designing the ‘Stuffed’ pearl studs my inspiration came from that first memory of feeling like a ‘real lady’ and then applying my SAM HAM brand of humour to it and seeing how that manifested.”
Get yours now
The results speak for themselves! You can find the ‘Stuffed’ pearl stud earrings available to order now over on the shop page, along with the 12 other pieces in the Honourable Pig collection.
Please remember our pieces are made to order, so allow 3-4 weeks for delivery, if you need them for an occasion sooner than this, email us and we will see what we can do!