Hot New Travel Inspired Jewelry

 

Shrapnel earrings:Hot New Travel Inspired Jewelry

It's become a social enterprise cliché: vacation in Southeast Asia, fall in love with local craftsmanship, feel despair in the face of local poverty, put one and one together, try to start community jewelry/ clothing/ furniture business.

But Hong Kong's latest tourism-to-entrepreneurship project, Edge of Ember, stands out because the designs are so darn funky.

The Willow necklace from the latest collection is a navel-grazing length of gold chain weighted down by geometric pendants and a brass spike. It's a little bit House of Harlow and a total contrast from the usual nicey-nicey designs of earnest social enterprises.

Trendy as it may be, Edge of Ember does not lack in bleeding-heart backstory.

The raw materials for the necklace are bombshell fragments rescued by Cambodian artisans from organized de-mining efforts by HALO Trust and Cambodian Mine Action Centre. Fishermen also find bombshells from the Mekong River. The artisans clean and melt the fragments to reuse the brass.

"Artisans change genocide remnants, and a reminder of their painful past, into something of beauty," says Edge of Ember founder Lynette Ong.

There are also chunky bangles made from rescued buffalo horn in the Thuy Ung village south of Hanoi. The artisans go around to buffalo slaughterhouses to collect discarded horns.

Off-white hoops of horn are decorated with black velvet bands and brass spikes. It's just waiting for a poolside Instagram shoot.