{"id":19711,"date":"2023-10-19T22:58:47","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T20:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.amber.com.pl\/teraz-jest-dobry-czas-na-bursztyn-rozmowa-z-emilia-kohut\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T18:45:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T17:45:43","slug":"now-is-a-good-time-for-amber-interview-with-emilia-kohut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/aktualnosci\/teraz-jest-dobry-czas-na-bursztyn-rozmowa-z-emilia-kohut\/","title":{"rendered":"Now is a great time for amber - an interview with Emilia Kohut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Superfine Jewellery brand Emilia Kohut will now be replaced by ION. Why the change?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It's a natural evolution - I felt the need for a change. To say goodbye to resins and experimentation and turn towards traditional jewellery techniques. To separate the past from the present - hence the new name ION. The new brand concept was created over many months, during which I considered various options and directions, looked at trends in the market, but above all listened to my own needs. These led me in the direction of a personal, jewellery and exclusive brand.<\/p>\n

Resins and experimentation have become your trademark. At the beginning of your career you had to fight for your place in the amber jewellery market, mainly for the acceptance of the combination of resin and amber.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I'm closing this stage, although today I don't know if I'm closing it definitively yet. Who knows, maybe I will return to them one day? If I do, then certainly in a different form. I have worked many years in this technique, indeed I have fought many smaller and larger wars in this field... But I am more attracted to development than to maintaining the status quo. Particularly as at one point I felt that I had already reached a wall: resin, at least in my opinion, had already become a bit worn out - it had become popular, which made it no longer attractive to me. I still have a lot of ideas for using my many years of accumulated resin knowledge, so perhaps these will find their way into the new brand's products, but no longer in jewellery.<\/p>\n

ION - what does it mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the new brand I was looking for a simple name, as neutral as possible. As I also base my new brand mainly on amber, I was looking for good associations. I'm not a fan of talking about its health-promoting properties - although I have a feeling that others will find it really interesting - but its positive aura, the negative ionisation that has a positive effect on our wellbeing, already appeals to me. At some stage of consideration, the word \u201eion\u201d came up and was \u201eanglicised\u201d - and so the name ION was born. I feel that it is somewhat mysterious, and is subtly associated with amber, and so offers a chance to start an interesting conversation - not just about jewellery.<\/p>\n

In addition to jewellery, what will you offer under the ION brand?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At first, I will focus on small utilitarian objects and those related to jewellery and feminine accessories: handbags, scarves and hair ornaments. The inspiration will of course be amber: its colours, its connections with nature, the sea and my beloved Gdynia, where the studio is located. I hope to show amber in a different light, to give it a new quality. I believe that I will appeal to the tastes of younger audiences, convincing ladies my age and even younger ones. I've succeeded quite well before, so why shouldn't I now?<\/p>\n

Many makers are now talking about \u201edisenchanting\u201d amber, but few can really claim success. The key seems to be good, modern design. What ideas do you have?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also design, but perceived differently. For me, design used to mean fancy shapes and materials, but today it's simply perfectly designed, comfortable forms and great quality natural materials. Please take a look at my new designs - they are no great discoveries, no \u201eridden\u201d form. What is important for me is the philosophy of the brand, its atmosphere, showing me, my world and my thinking about jewellery. I want to show where I get my amber from, how I make my jewellery, how strongly I get involved in each realisation and that the collections are made to order, so they will always remain niche. My thinking about jewellery with amber has now changed 180 degrees. After graduating from the Gdansk Academy of Fine Arts, I was convinced that jewellery had to be designer, had to be made from innovative materials and be created through experimentation. And today? Today, amber must be completely natural - I look for the prettiest nuggets and the coolest combinations to emphasise its natural charm. I match the form to them, even paying attention to how the light will be reflected.<\/p>\n

You've written that with your new brand you want to reach out to everyone who raves about amber like you do. How do you jive with amber?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amber has been present in my jewellery since I graduated in 2012. I think we have something absolutely unique, and on a global scale, and fantastic artists who feel it very well and have built a really cool brand of Polish amber in the world. Personally, I'm keen for the viewers to look at amber through my eyes, so that when they take it in their hands, they feel what I feel.<\/p>\n

Do you remember what it was like with that amber in the beginning?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the beginning it was... a massacre (laughs). I remember my first contact with amber - the condition for passing the semester was to submit an entry to the International Competition for the Design of Jewellery with Amberif Design Award 2012. The students were upset, no one understood what Professor Fija\u0142kowski was talking about. I was even a bit disappointed - after all, we were supposed to do cool things during our studies, and suddenly amber appears, which is impossible to do anything with. That's what I thought until I went for a short internship to the workshop of Gda\u0144sk amber jeweller Zbigniew Strzelczyk. It was there that it hit me. I saw that amber wasn't the cognac-coloured landraces I had always seen. I could touch the natural nuggets and polish them, smelling their incredible fragrance. That's when my flip-flops opened and I started thinking about how to \u201ebite\u201d it. I came up with and was awarded the Amberif Design Award in the Amberif competition with 2 kg of raw material. Initially I had a plan to sell it, but my father convinced me to change my decision by buying me the first tools to process it. Throughout the holidays I experimented - that's how my first amber collection was created. And then it just happened! The fashion world I was trying to conquer was just as surprised by these resin collections - which the amber world was strongly resenting - they liked the smooth, satin surfaces, which were not associated with amber at all. I remember how much it cost me at the time to explain that this was amber. During my apprenticeship at a well-known jewellery company, the employees laughed that I was making jewellery out of sills (laughs). And then suddenly, after so many years, I came full circle and went back from those sills to classic techniques and designs.<\/p>\n

RECOMMENDED:<\/strong> Jewellery must evoke emotions - an interview with Emilia Kohut <\/a><\/p>\n

You have come of age (laughs).<\/strong><\/p>\n

And do you know that I think I do? (laughs). As one gets older, one tends towards maximum simplification, values high quality more than before and delights in the classics. I guess that time has come for me too - after so many years of jewellery experimentation. What I care about now is that my jewellery is timeless, that it is passed down from generation to generation.<\/p>\n

What are the first reactions to this change?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Positive. I particularly value the reactions of people who have fundamentally rejected amber, and thanks to the new collection are beginning to open up to it - I consider this a great success. I hope that a new strategy for the promotion of Gda\u0144sk - the World Capital of Amber - will soon be implemented, which, according to the assumption, will contribute to a better perception of amber. I took part in a workshop where experts from various sectors - amber and non-amber related - worked out its assumptions. It was then that it dawned on me that building the image of amber and the industry is actually very simple, and I decided to use the valuable knowledge shared by the experts at the amber workshop for my own use.<\/p>\n

Does this mean that the amber workshop was the inspiration for you to create your new personal brand of amber jewellery?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I think so. For me, the most inspiring meetings were the ones where experts unrelated to amber talked about how they had caught a real foothold in amber when they explored the subject. Thanks to these workshops, I was able to catch a distance, to look at amber from a different perspective - and everything fell into place for me in a whole new story that I will try to convince others of. Now is a great time for amber. Just look at the perceived old-fashioned pearls that have come back into favour - now even men are wearing them! At this year's fashion weeks, amber also featured in collections from brands that have never been associated with amber. Nothing happens without a cause, everything has to find its time. Now is the time for amber - I feel it like never before.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She turned the avant-garde thinking of amber into a classic one. The once shocking combinations of amber and resin for natural raw materials. Fancy shapes for comfortable forms. Emilia Kohut presents her new personal brand ION. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"Teraz jest \u015bwietny moment dla bursztynu \u2013 rozmowa z Emili\u0105 Kohut - Amber Portal","description":"She turned the avant-garde thinking of amber into a classic one. The once shocking combinations of amber and resin for natural raw materials. Fancy shapes for comfortable for"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"sekcja":[245],"class_list":["post-19711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wywiady","sekcja-ludzie-opinie"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19711"},{"taxonomy":"sekcja","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sekcja?post=19711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}