Although trained as an architect, Vania Ruiz didn’t find her true calling until she studied goldsmithing and resin craft. “Suddenly everything began to make sense,” says the designer, “the calm I felt while I was drawing, the need to build ideas with my hands..."

Working in her small home studio in Viña del Mar, on Chile’s Pacific coast, Ruiz incorporates locally sourced natural materials and hand-drawn elements into each piece of wearable art.