NOMIS Lets the Light In with Lumière Libre

Jewellery is usually defined by what has been added: the weight of the gold, the brilliance of the stones and the intricacy of the setting. With Lumière Libre, NOMIS asks us to look just as closely at what has been left open.

Negative space runs through the collection. Gold lines frame the body without enclosing it, diamonds appear suspended within geometric structures, and light is allowed to pass through each design rather than simply reflect from its surface.

The result is a collection that feels substantial without appearing heavy. These are pieces with presence, but their impact comes through proportion, rhythm and construction rather than an abundance of ornament.

For NOMIS founder and creative director Alyona Kiperman, Lumière Libre represents jewellery considered three-dimensionally. Each ring, necklace and single earring has been approached as a spatial composition: something to be viewed from different angles and understood through its relationship with the wearer.

From the sculptor’s studio

The collection emerged during a period in which Kiperman moved beyond the traditional jewellery workbench and began exploring sculpture.

In Pietrasanta, the Tuscan town known for its marble-working tradition, she learned to carve stone. She later worked with clay and followed the bronze-casting process at a foundry near Milan. These experiences encouraged a different way of thinking about scale, volume and the relationship between solid material and the space around it.

Sculpture was not intended to become a separate commercial venture. Instead, it became a means of exercising the creative instincts behind NOMIS.

Designing jewellery can begin with a relatively flat drawing. Working with marble, clay and bronze demands an understanding of mass from every direction. Lumière Libre translates that thinking back into jewellery, reducing monumental ideas to forms that can be worn against the ear, hand or neckline.

The collection is handcrafted in Italy using 18-carat yellow, rose or white gold and lab-grown diamonds. Rather than functioning solely as decoration, the diamonds help articulate the construction, directing the eye along a curve, through an opening or across a sequence of carefully aligned lines.

NOMIS explores light, structure and negative space through sculptural gold and diamond jewellery from the Lumière Libre collection

Five names, five ways of seeing

The pieces are named after five artists and architects whose work changed the relationship between form, movement, light and space: Ruth Asawa, Kengo Kuma, Jesús Rafael Soto, Naum Gabo and Lygia Pape.

These references are not presented as literal reproductions. Instead, NOMIS draws upon the visual principles that made each figure’s work distinctive.

The R. Asawa single earring references the extraordinary suspended wire sculptures of American artist Ruth Asawa. Asawa demonstrated that empty space could carry as much meaning as the material surrounding it. NOMIS responds with an open composition of gold, oval and marquise-cut lab-grown diamonds that creates volume without closing the form.

The K. Kuma necklaces take their name from Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, whose buildings frequently soften the boundary between structure, light and the natural environment. In the K. Kuma N2 necklace, marquise-cut diamonds punctuate an arrangement that feels layered and architectural while retaining a sense of serenity.

The J. Soto ring recalls the optical and kinetic language of Venezuelan artist Jesús Rafael Soto. Its repeated lines and precisely positioned stones encourage the design to change with movement, allowing the viewer’s perspective to become part of the piece.

The N. Gabo ring pays tribute to constructivist sculptor Naum Gabo, who treated space and movement as materials in their own right. Gold outlines the structure rather than filling it, giving the ring an open appearance despite its considerable physical substance.

Lygia Pape, one of the central figures of Brazil’s Neo-Concrete movement, provides the reference for the L. Pape single earring. Her investigation of geometry, participation and sensory experience is echoed through an ordered composition of marquise-cut diamonds and elongated gold lines.

Together, the designs form more than a collection of artistic homages. They create a conversation between different disciplines, allowing architecture, sculpture and fine jewellery to occupy the same intimate scale.

The J. Soto ring from NOMIS’ Lumière Libre collection uses sweeping 18-karat gold lines and marquise-cut lab-grown diamonds to explore rhythm, movement and light

Breaking the NOMIS rule

Lumière Libre is particularly interesting because it departs from one of the brand’s defining principles.

Since NOMIS was established in 2020, Kiperman has developed a reputation for transformable jewellery. Ear cuffs become rings, earrings convert into pendants and bracelets can be restyled as chokers. The wearer is usually invited to dismantle, reconfigure and reinterpret a piece.

Lumière Libre does not operate in the same way. Its designs are fixed.

That decision is significant. It suggests that freedom does not always require physical transformation. Here, freedom is found within the form itself: in the air held between gold lines, in the movement of light across the diamonds and in the different impressions created as the piece is viewed from another angle.

The jewellery may not change function, but it does change perception.

The R. Asawa single earring from NOMIS’ Lumière Libre collection pairs an oval-cut lab-grown diamond with suspended pear-cut stones in a fluid 18-carat gold structure

Lightness without disappearance

The title Lumière Libre translates as “free light”, a fitting description for jewellery designed to let illumination move through its structure.

Yet lightness should not be confused with fragility or minimalism. Some pieces occupy a considerable amount of visual space, while others contain a significant weight of gold. The N. Gabo ring, for example, uses negative space to create an apparently open construction while containing more than 17 grams of gold.

This tension gives the collection its character. NOMIS has not attempted to make jewellery disappear against the body. Instead, Kiperman has created designs that hold their ground while allowing air and light to remain visible within them.

The lab-grown diamonds contribute to this effect. Their oval, pear and marquise cuts extend the linear quality of the designs, appearing almost like points of light caught within a drawn structure.

It is a more thoughtful use of diamonds than simply covering every available surface. The stones become part of the architecture.

he L. Pape single earring from NOMIS’ Lumière Libre collection arranges marquise-cut lab-grown diamonds between parallel 18-karat gold lines, creating a study in geometry, light and space

The Jewels Club Take

Lumière Libre feels most successful when viewed as a collection about restraint.

Its artistic references are ambitious, its silhouettes are large and its materials are luxurious, yet the designs avoid becoming overworked. Every opening is as carefully considered as every gold line, and the absence of material becomes part of the composition.

It also marks an intriguing evolution for NOMIS. A brand known for giving the wearer the freedom to transform a jewel has now discovered another kind of versatility: a fixed object that appears different with every movement.

There is nothing passive about these pieces. They frame the body, interrupt the expected silhouette and reward closer observation. But they do so without relying on conventional ideas of opulence.

With Lumière Libre, NOMIS does not simply place art references into jewellery. It adopts the way sculptors and architects think—using structure, balance and space to determine how an object is experienced.

The collection’s greatest luxury may therefore be something that cannot be weighed in grams or measured in carats: the light it allows to remain free.

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