Wendy Pickard Designs Elephant Charity Necklace

14-11-2007 11:47

Jewellery designer Wendy Pickard has created a special limited edition pendant to help save elephants in South Africa.

The founder of the Branch jewellery label has teamed up with Amarula Cream to launch a necklace in the shape of a tusk made in rosewood from a sustainable forest and held with a sterling silver tree design in time for Christmas.

"Amarula is made from the fruit of the marula tree. Elephants absolutely love to eat the fruit from the tree and it makes them go a bit kind of wild and a little bit drunk," says Wendy explaining her inspiration for the design.

"So when they asked me to design the pendant I though well it's got to have that connection with the elephant so I came up with the tusk- which is also promotes the abolishion of ivory too."

Wendy is known for her unique approach to jewellery design combining wood and silver to create great unusual pieces. Through her designs Wendy manages to emphasise the natural essence of the wood and how beauty forms in the colours and shapes within the wood.

"I spent a lot of time travelling in Africa when I was younger and they have some beautiful wooden jewellery there and that's where the inital seed was planted and from there I kind of developed a love of really natural products," Wendy told Female First.

"I think the move towards natural products is getting stronger and stronger each season and that's really key for people now- they don't want to keep buying plastic and they don't want to think about the pollutants going into the air from making the plastic when they have a nice piece of wooden jewellery that's come from a natural or sustainable source."

The limited edition necklace is available from Harvey Nicholls and www.chezbec.com priced at just £49 with proceeds going to Amarula Cream’s elephant conservation projects in South Africa.

Caz Moss- Female First