THE ART OF JEWELS PRESENTED BY FRANKLI WILD

Kevin Friedman has been director of design at Frankli Wild™ in Norwood since 1989.

His grandfather was jewellery doyen Jack Friedman and father, a multi award winning jeweller, Frank Friedman founded the Jewellery Council of South Africa.

One of Kevin’s most celebrated pieces, which earned a mention in The Robb Report as well as Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, was the extraordinary $16 million Ponahalo Necklace., composed of almost 300 carats of diamonds with beads and 276 safety pins, debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007

In 2010 he held an innovative collaborative exhibition with Apple South Africa, using their discarded computer components to create beautiful pieces and explore the inter-relationship between art and technology.

Kevin has won numerous awards for his jewellery designs, including the prestigious De Beers Diamonds International Award in Paris. The award winning Ndebele diamond collar was worn by Charlize Theron for a magazine cover.

Kevin has clients in all six continents and frequently travels internationally to lecture and exhibit his work.

“Because I believe each person is a unique individual, when I make collections, every piece needs to have its own distinct personality. The central components of the pieces are what influence the final outcome of the design. All the pieces are made with found objects which could be anything from a high caratage valuable gemstone to a plastic toy, because I feel that anything that has aesthetic value has ‘Real Value’.
My community projects are based in northern Gauteng and Mpumlanga and are essentially Ndebele focused. Historically I have run projects with all the major cultural groups of South Africa, therefore my pieces all have a very strong connection to South Africa and our unique cultural identity, but with a very strong undercurrent of high design. It is for this reason that my work has been so successful internationally because it is both very classically European but with very strong African overtones”

Kevin Friedman