MICHAEL BERGER

Johannesburg-born Michael Berger loves transforming graceful hands into eye-catching stages. Appropriately, his hand-made collections feature kinetic jewellery pieces that move and spin on the wearer’s hand.

Berger views jewellery not solely as adornment or a means of communicating the wearer’s affluence. “There is undoubtedly a certain playfulness involved if you design kinetic jewellery,” explains the designer, who established his studio in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1999.

Kinetics – defined in physics as the dynamics of bodies which are accelerated by forces – is the driving force which makes Berger’s unusually shaped rings so fascinating.

At first glance, his stainless steel or gold ring sculptures seem to be attractively heavy and clearly shaped pieces. It is when you put them on and start moving your hands horizontally in flowing movements that their full magic is revealed: the top elements, which nestle closely together, start to move and rotate. This finger-dance, initiated by the wearer, is made possible by the microscopic bearings that join the top and bottom section of each ring.