In November 2024, Kering launched the Kering Generation Award X Jewelry in collaboration with CIBJO – The World Jewellery Confederation, and with scientific coordination by Poli.Design – Politecnico di Milano, Italy’s leading technical university that ranks among the top engineering, architecture, and design schools globally.
This initiative was established to bolster innovation and promote sustainability within the jewellery sector.
For its inaugural edition, participating students and start-ups were invited to design a piece or collection of jewellery inspired by the theme “Second Chance, First Choice.”
In May, shortlisted candidates presented their concepts to the jury, and 4 finalists were selected—2 from the student category and 2 from the start-ups category. These finalists will present their final projects to the jury on June 7, 2025, during the JCK Las Vegas Show.
The award invited both students and emerging businesses to reimagine waste as a valuable resource, encouraging designs that transform discarded materials into meaningful and desirable jewellery. By challenging traditional perceptions of waste, this first edition of the Kering Generation Award X Jewelry emphasises the creative and sustainable potential of reuse.
With the strong support of Kering’s jewellery Maisons—Boucheron, Pomellato, DoDo, and Qeelin—this award underscores Kering’s commitment to driving responsible innovation and sustainability across the jewellery industry.
Here are the 4 finalists of the 2025 Kering Generation Award X Jewelry
Ex Oblivione, France | Start-up category
Ex Oblivione is a French brand combining space innovation and fine jewellery by transforming and upcycling decommissioned and unused components from real space missions, like satellite protections, into unique high-end pieces of art.
Ianyan, China | Start-up category
Ianyan is a Chinese brand that highlights fractured opals and unusual stones through its collections, often overlooked in conventional jewellery for their raw beauty. The brand promotes a circular economy by choosing imperfect gems to revive traditional values and give new life to materials through craftsmanship, while designing each piece to be repairable, transformable, or recomposable.
Lee Min Seo, Korea | Student category
Lee Min Seo made a collection from the discarded leather of a traditional Korean percussion instrument, the jang-gu (drum), to promote cultural preservation (Pictured above). Lee Min Seo will be the voice of the Hongik University, presenting her reimagination of Korean music with her project, Rhythm Reborn.
Tony Favorito, USA | Student category
Tony Favorito is restoring emotional value to materials destined for the landfill by creating modular rings made with fragments of stones or marble from home renovation work. With his project named Memory Fragment, Tony Favorito will be representing the Rochester Institute of Technology showing how floor or wall covering can be turned into jewellery.
In 2017, as part of its Sustainability strategy, Kering joined the “Plug and Play – Fashion for Good” accelerator to identify more sustainable and innovative materials and processes in Europe. In 2018, in partnership with Plug and Play China, Kering launched the first edition of the “Kering Generation Award” to support Chinese start-ups with a positive environmental and social impact. Since then, the “Kering Generation Award” has been launched in Japan, and later in Saudi Arabia with the support of the Fashion Commission.