Her creations are part of the permanent collections at the Smithsonian in Washington, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. There is at least a five-year waiting list for her butterfly brooches. She has been honored by the French Order of Arts and Letters, with the country’s minister of culture in 2021 describing her work as “at the crossroads between goldsmith, sculpture and architecture.”
She is the Taiwanese jeweler Cindy Chao, 50, whose range of jeweled pins, bangles, earrings and necklaces is known for its fusion of Eastern and Western design sensibilities. Despite the international accolades, however, when asked to sum up the achievements of her brand, Cindy Chao The Art Jewel, as it turns 20 this year, the word that came to her mind was survival.
“I think for a lot of creators in the beginning, you create to survive,” she said, sitting in a light-filled studio at her Taipei headquarters, overlooking the Regent hotel, where the brand opened its first gallery in 2022. “I just wanted to survive so that people could continue to see my work.”
Ms. Chao credits her success not to being “so gifted or outstanding,” she said, but to perseverance — especially in light of significant obstacles.
As a single mother who made what she called the “painful decision” to send her only son overseas to boarding school at age nine, Ms. Chao was also a young, female Asian jeweler in an industry dominated by men. High jewelry also is predominantly a Western discipline, rooted in European culture. “You need to work extra hard to prove where you are and who you are,” Ms. Chao said.
