Belgium, Antwerp, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, 2018

In western culture, a marriage proposal is incomplete without a diamond engagement ring. It is hard to believe this tradition is the result of an advertising campaign by De Beers, launched in 1938.

In Chinese culture, the jade bangle has similar meaning. They are given as part of a proposal – their circular shape a symbol of eternal love and blissful union. But Xinyuan believes love can be seen from different perspectives, and that each relationship deserves a unique symbol to represent the many facets of love. For this collection, she has reinterpreted the classic jade bangle using 3D CAD and traditional stone-cutting techniques and has developed a relationship between material and shape to create multiple versions of the traditional bangle.