After 7 years inside the world of Alexander McQueen, Anabela Chan returned to it in a different role, no longer as part of the house, but as a collaborator whose jewellery completed one of Lady Gaga’s most regal red-carpet moments. The moment feels poetic, because Chan had already moved far beyond her earlier chapter, emerging as the force behind her own brand and as one of the most original voices in contemporary luxury.
After 7 years inside the world of Alexander McQueen, Anabela Chan returned to it in a different role, no longer as part of the house, but as a collaborator whose jewellery completed one of Lady Gaga’s most regal red-carpet moments. The moment feels poetic, because Chan had already moved far beyond her earlier chapter, emerging as the force behind her own brand and as one of the most original voices in contemporary luxury.
April 6, 2026
At the London premiere of A Star Is Born on September 27, 2018, Lady Gaga arrived in a vision of aristocratic grandeur, wearing an Alexander McQueen gown with Anabela Chan’s Constellation pearl ear cuffs glimmering at her ears. Set with glittering diamonds and pearls, the earrings lent the look a regal, almost eighteenth-century romance. Yet the true poetry of the moment lived beneath the surface, in the presence of Anabela Chan herself, a designer shaped by the McQueen universe who has reimagined high jewellery through science, imagination, and the unlikely beauty of food waste and used coke cans transformed into luxury.
Anabela Chan’s journey resembles that of an alchemist more than a conventional jeweller, though there is an inventor’s restlessness in it too. Before jewelry, she moved through architecture, fashion, and gemology, gathering the languages that would later make her work feel so singular. Architecture taught her structure, how to make scale feel balanced and gravity feel negotiable. Her years at Alexander McQueen gave her a taste for drama, silhouette, and the dark romance of adornment, where beauty never merely decorates, but transforms. Gemology, in turn, gave her the technical language to rethink the very idea of preciousness, opening the door to laboratory-grown gemstones, recycled metals, and experimental materials with genuine conviction.
That breadth of vision extends far beyond design alone. Anabela Chan treats jewellery as a meeting point between art, science, storytelling, and social purpose. Even her more unexpected creations, such as the bespoke tribal-inspired neckpiece made of red macaw feathers for Sophie Turner to fantastical objets d’art, reveal a designer comfortable moving between disciplines, scales, and emotional registers.
Anabela Chan’s magic begins with material and ends with ethicals.
Laboratory-grown gemstones possess the same physical and chemical properties as mined gems, yet they arrive without the same environmental burden associated with large-scale mining. She is not asking the client to accept compromise. She is arguing that scientific equivalence, combined with ethical advantage, creates a more compelling object.
Her use of recycled aluminium works in a similarly strategic way. Aluminium allows for sculptural scale without excessive weight. It is lightweight, visually flexible, and highly suited to the oversized botanical silhouettes that define much of Chan’s jewellery language.
The most radical development in this material portfolio is Fruit Gems. By using pigments derived from fruit and vegetable waste and stabilising them into jewel-like forms, Chan expands the conversation beyond responsible sourcing into regenerative imagination.
The same logic applies to Regenerative-Gemstone, which reconstitute stone fragments and lapidary waste into new semi-precious surfaces. Again, the point is deeper than recycling alone. Chan is constructing a new materials philosophy in which luxury emerges through transformation. Her jewels express a circular model of value: Fragments, residue, and overlooked matter can be redesigned into objects of desirability.
Shaped by a childhood of travel, Anabela Chan developed an early interest in avian zoology, rare specimens, and the strange beauty of the natural world. That fascination flows directly into her Objets D’Art, where butterflies, wings, petals, and other delicate forms are reimagined as ornament. In these pieces, fragile elements lose their literal identity and become compositions of colour, texture, and movement, suspended between science, fantasy, and decoration.
That sensibility also defines the world around the brand. Her London flagship on Sloane Street is filled with taxidermy references and unusual natural specimens. The setting reveals Chan’s vision: Nature is the spectacle, theater, and atmosphere.
The allure does not stop on land, the depths of the sea provide a different kind of inspiration through the "Mermaid’s Tale" and "Jelly Heart" collections. Born from a period of "digital travel" during global lockdowns, these marine-inspired works are crafted from recycled aluminum soda cans, many of which were salvaged during beach clean-ups. Through a partnership with SeaTrees, each piece sold contributes to the planting of 100 mangrove trees, ensuring that the brand’s growth actively regenerates the coastal habitats of the species it celebrates.
Finally, Chan’s "Blooms!" collection exemplifies her "Intellectual Luxury" approach by blurring the lines between flora and fauna. These hyper-botanical pieces invite the viewer into a lush, over-grown "Garden of Eden" where hidden details reward the curious observer. Upon closer inspection, what appear to be vibrant petals often reveal tiny, pavé-encrusted ladybirds or frogs nestled within. By treating wildlife not as isolated subjects but as vital components of a larger, interconnected ecosystem, Anabela Chan ensures her jewelry is as intellectually engaging as it is visually spectacular.
Since launching her brand in 2013, she has expanded her universe through a series of highly visible collaborations, beginning with her debut solo exhibition, The Natural Curiosities Of Anabela Chan, unveiled at Les Ateliers Courbet New York in May 2016.
In couture, her closest creative alliances include Robert Wun, whose sharp, sculptural collections across AW24 Homecoming, AW25 Becoming, and SS26 Valour were elevated by Chan’s crystalline, movement-like jewels; Miss Sohee, where her hyper-botanical, colour-saturated pieces brought fantasy and softness to collections from SS23 through SS26; and Andrea Brocca, whose mathematically precise vision found a strong counterpart in Anabela Chan’s architectural high jewellery for AW23.
Beyond fashion, she has translated her aesthetic into lifestyle and design through collaborations with Lobmeyr, Yuet Tung Porcelains, Bernhardt Textiles, and Studio William, carrying her gem-like textures and nature-inspired motifs into objets d’art, porcelain, upholstery, and luxury cutlery. Her wider cultural reach extends through projects such as The Big Egg Hunt, Pintu, Heaven By Marc Jacobs, and Wild At Heart with Nikki Tibbles, each revealing how Chan’s world can hold philanthropy, digital innovation, youth culture, and floral artistry within the same imaginative luxury language
Recognised among The 50 Most Influential People In British Luxury in 2022 and honoured with the Game Changer Award in 2023, Anabela Chan has steadily built a practice where jewellery moves across couture, art, interiors, and culture with rare fluency.
