Growing up in Sydney, Australia, Michelle developed an early fascination with how different cultures express beauty and meaning through adornment. This curiosity led to a career as a flight attendant, where she spent 13 years traversing the globe, immersing herself in diverse artistic traditions and collecting visual inspiration from every corner of the world. From the ornate sensibilities of the Victorian era to the minimalist elegance of Scandinavian design, these experiences became the foundation of her creative vision.
Eventually, the pull to create rather than simply observe became impossible to ignore. In 2007 Michelle began formal study in Jewellery and Object Design, training with esteemed gold and silversmiths. Here she could finally translate her accumulated aesthetic sensibilities into tangible form, honing her technical skills while developing a distinctive design language that bridges historical and cultural influences with contemporary craft.
Since then, her work has been recognised with a Design Institute of Australia Award and featured in Wallpaper Magazine. She has participated in numerous exhibitions and had the privilege of working with established contemporary jewellers, learning the nuances of the craft from makers she deeply admires. These experiences refined her approach and reinforced her commitment to creating pieces that are both technically accomplished and emotionally resonant.
Today, based in Melbourne, Michelle’s work exists in the space between reverence and reinvention. Drawing from classical jewellery’s rich visual language, she distills historical references to their essential gestures, creating pieces that feel both familiar and strikingly modern. A signet ring becomes a perfect geometric plane; a locket’s drama reduces to a single suspended form.
Working primarily in silver, Michelle approaches each piece as an exercise in reduction rather than simplification. Her work asks what happens when ornamentation falls away, not as rejection of the past, but as a way of revealing the underlying architecture that made these designs endure. There’s a quietness to these pieces, yet they carry the same presence as their more elaborate predecessors, proving that restraint can be its own kind of luxury.
Each piece is an opportunity to distill a lifetime of global inspiration into something intimate and enduring—jewellery that tells stories, both hers and those of the people who wear them.