“Contemporary and the art of no style” — that’s how jewelry designer Nghi Nguyen describes his defiantly bold aesthetic.
“I don’t want to be confined to a single [look],” says the founder of NGHI for NN Jewels. “I’m not a brand; my work isn’t meant to be easily understood or conventionally beautiful. It’s meant to challenge the wearer — it appeals to an open mind-set.”
The Vietnamese-Australian creative has emerged as a distinct voice within Brooklyn’s contemporary jewelry scene, where art, attitude and identity collide. His pieces evoke relics from another realm — fusing past, present and future aesthetics to reimagine what modern opulence can look like in the 21st century and beyond.
“I’m inspired by global craft, technology, and historical jewels,” he says. “For me, jewelry tells stories — of our time, our love, our identity. I’m driven to challenge and expand the idea of contemporary beauty through my work.”
Different worlds
Born in Vietnam, Nguyen got his degree in design and photography in Australia before embarking on an unconventional creative journey. His formative years designing for stage and performance laid the foundations for his singular, subversive approach to jewelry.
“I’ve always been drawn to ideas that go against the grain, experimenting with new materials and narratives that aren’t yet popular or desired in mainstream culture,” he says.
After university, he formed an experimental art collective in Perth, where he worked with non-traditional materials such as vinyl, perspex and leather to create sculptural accessories and costumes for musicians and performance artists. His practice later expanded to Tokyo, where he immersed himself in the city’s vibrant music and fashion scene, designing for Japanese pop stars and exploring new forms of wearable art.
“A designer once asked me to create accessories and jewelry for Tokyo Fashion Week,” he recalls. “The pieces were picked up by a well-known, influential boutique.”
Japan also sparked his obsession with science fiction and manga, an influence that continues to permeate his work today. Chrome sheens clash against patinated surfaces, gemstones are chosen for their otherworldly qualities, and compositions evoke distant futures. “This gothic futurism forms the backdrop of my creations,” he says.
‘Finding beauty within fear’
Nguyen finds allure in the unconventional — raw metal textures, spiders, armor—embracing what unsettles to challenge traditional elegance. “My roots in experimental art, music and subcultures shape my work. With a pulse of rebellion, I strip the ostentation from high jewelry, hold onto the art, and craft pieces with grit and soul.”
His background in fashion certainly informs his approach to jewelry as total adornment: masks that obscure, armor that protects, pieces that move beyond fingers and necks to cover faces and bodies. “I believe everything we choose to wear should be as functional as it is beautiful,” he says.
His diamond Arachnophilia ring transforms a common fear into something precious, while pieces like the Mail Coif headpiece and Web of Shadows body adornment reimagine 10th-century armor through modern technology. “That experience continues to shape my design philosophy: finding beauty within fear and perceived imperfection. It’s an honest reflection of life itself: raw and imperfect.”
Metal narratives
Using a mix of traditional craftsmanship and innovative design techniques, Nguyen’s creations evoke an urban yet otherworldly allure, manifesting in polished metal textures and distinctively cut diamonds and gemstones.
“I gravitate toward nontraditional materials like bronze, steel and titanium,” he says. Lately he’s been combining silver and platinum, “mostly for their color and properties to fit each piece’s narrative.”
That same rebellious spirit carries through to the Corrosion Gold series, which he created in 2022 by taking distressed-silver chains with a corrosion patina and fusing them with 24-karat gold, then setting the pieces with single-cut diamonds.
“I wanted to ‘corrode’ gold as a reminder that nothing, not even gold, is eternal,” he says. While he respects gold, he finds it overused in traditional jewelry. “I use it sparingly, only when it adds to the narrative. Sometimes a material’s intrinsic value overshadows creativity.”
The feel of a diamond
When a piece begins with a gemstone, Nguyen studies it carefully, deciding whether the design should lean classical or experimental to reveal its story. His process is intuitive rather than formulaic; he finds that his aesthetic emerges organically through this deliberate contemplation.
That philosophy culminates in Nguyen’s latest jewel, PULSAR — a futuristic reimagining of the classic platinum diamond ring, showcasing a rare antique-cut elongated pear diamond weighing 10.26 carats. He created the piece for a Sotheby’s exhibition celebrating new publication The Jewelry Book by Melanie Grant, which includes some of his works. The September event was a joint effort by publisher Phaidon and the auction house.
“I’m drawn to old cuts because of their visible hand-cut quality,” he explains. “They hold a romantic warmth and quiet elegance that speaks of another time.”
More recently, his fascination extends to greenish-yellow diamonds. “Green feels symbolic of our generation — a color of protection and humanity. That greenish-yellow hue has an almost radioactive quality, like kryptonite. It’s both alluring and slightly dangerous, which I find captivating.”
