Winners of the Preziosa Young Design Competition 2024

In addition to the three winners, the jury has selected six other competitors who deserve special mention, even if they did not garner enough votes to be shortlisted:
Benedict Haener, Alice Biolo, Militsa Milenkova, Amanda Stumpf, Mark Newman, Xi Li.

The three winning artists will be awarded exhibitions and featured in the catalogue.

In addition, the following special prizes were awarded by the partners.
- Inhorgenta Special Prize: YeJin Choi has been awarded a complimentary exhibition space at the 2026 edition of the fair.
- Journal des Bijoux Special Prize: Mark Newman has been awarded the special prize by Laura Astrologo Porché.
- Laura Helena Aureli Special Prizes: Benedict Haener and YeJin Choi have each been awarded a special prize by Laura Helena Aureli, founder and creative director of Lost In Jewellery Magazine.

The LAO Special Prize, reserved for the three overall winners of the competition, will be awarded in the coming weeks.

The winners’ exhibition will be presented during the MIDA (Mostra Internazionale dell’Artigianato) event, which will be held in Florence from April 25th to May 1st, 2025, in the Polveriera pavilion, a space entirely dedicated to LAO. Subsequently, the Galerie Door by Doreen Timmers will host the exhibition from June 28th to July 20th in Nijmegen, Netherlands. A selection of the works will be featured at the Rome Jewelry Week 2025. Other locations and dates are currently being finalized.


The international jury was composed of:
- Giò Carbone, founder and director of Le Arti Orafe school, founder and coordinator of the PREZIOSA-Florence Jewellery Week project
- Alice Rendon, art historian, Florence
- Maria Laura La Mantia, jewellery historian, Caserta and Florence
- Doreen Timmers, Galerie Door, Mariaheide, Netherlands
- Bryna Pomp, director of MAD About Jewelry, Museum of arts and design, New York
- Monica Cecchini, Architect, founder of the Rome Jewelry Week, designer, art curator and director of the Incinque Open Art Monti gallery
- Eliana Negroni, Curator of the Negroni Archive and Board Member of AGC (Association for Contemporary Jewelry)
- Laura Astrologo Porché, journalist specializing in jewelry and watches
- Laura Helena Aureli, founder and creative director of Lost in Jewellery Magazine
- Irina Probst, exhibition manager, INHORGENTA Munich
- Charlotte Vanhoubroek, jewellery artist, selected for the 2021 edition of PREZIOSA YOUNG, and winner of the LAO special prize.


PREZIOSA YOUNG is one of the most prestigious international competitions dedicated to contemporary jewelry. Created in 2008 in Florence as part of the PREZIOSA-Florence Jewellery Week, and organized by the Florentine School of Goldsmithing Le Arti Orafe, the competition has quickly established itself for the quality of its selection, entrusted each year to a prestigious international jury, and for the seriousness of its intentions. PY is also the only competition of its kind for which competitors do not have to pay participation fees or contribute to the costs of setting up exhibitions or publishing the catalog.

The requirements for participating in the competition are the design and technical quality of the proposed works and the innovative use of processing techniques and materials. The selection is carried out in complete transparency: the jurors do not know the names or country of origin of the participants. This procedure also helps to make Preziosa Young an authoritative and internationally recognized event, capable of capturing and promoting the spirit and new demands of contemporary jewelry research.

In addition to its activities in the field of education, which have made Florence the most important center for the study of goldsmithing, with this project the school has been contributing for 40 years to sowing seeds of innovation in the Florentine artistic craftsmanship scene, thanks also to collaborations with associations such as the provincial CNA and institutions such as Firenze Fiere, and the now consolidated participation in MIDA. We know the three young winners awarded by the jury very well.


Let's get to know the three winners better.

Margo Csipő
As a metalsmith, sculptor, illustrator, and poet, my practice explores jewelry and masks as vessels for meaning to be emptied and filled by the creator and wearer both physically and metaphorically.
The scrimshaw illustrations in my work question what makes an image specific or universal, what is understood and what is alien. My relationship to these images is built through my drawing and poetry- writing practices. These writings unearth the depths of visual metaphor that I work with to express my joy and frustration at the unknowns of my reality. Cups, hands, insects, rocks, mazes, and drips suggest something held or acts of gain and loss. Processing time and growth through these sequential images, I attempt to understand my own myth in flux.
Images are engraved on mother of pearl, bone and amber or chased in silver. These small vignettes are then riveted or set like stones on intensely fabricated linkages. The materials must be soft enough to engrave, but hard enough to be worn and hold the ink that is rubbed into the designs. Just as these images are held in the matrixes of pearl, bone, and amber–the wearer and creator hold the meanings of these images in the matrixes of themselves. The resulting objects are intimate and precious, illustrated on front and back to entice the wearer and viewer into further examination.
Mesh structures take the appearance of armor linkages, but their designs directly reference Whiting Davis evening bags, another mechanism of holding. Taking the forms of neckpieces, masks, and brooches–the gentle drapery holds the wearer with comfortable weight and makes them into another vessel of meaning in the linkage. Structure, repetition and connectivity build the relationships between illustrations, animating tales of the unknown on the body.


Yasmin Zehavi
My artistic practice draws profound inspiration from prehistoric jewelry and shells, which were worn, buried, and discovered intertwined with their owners. These organic pieces, fused with human skeletons, create a new kind of anatomy where jewelry becomes an intrinsic part of the wearer’s life story. Each piece serves as an eternal biography, evoking empathy and connection with individuals from millennia ago, and standing as a testament to the society in which it was created.
In my work, I simulate invented organic remnants, blending forms from the human body. Jewelry is portrayed as a fossil, surviving tens of thousands of years and documenting its era. This exploration delves into how jewelry communicates with the future and serves as a tool for understanding the past, allowing the jeweler to influence historical narratives. My pieces are constructed as hollow layers, reminiscent of archaeological excavation layers, emphasizing the depth and complexity of historical discovery.
I work with pure silver, an eternal material, to express the jeweler’s role in preserving human connections across millennia. My technique aims to produce no material waste, utilizing whole silver sheets with traditional methods of cutting and soldering, deliberately avoiding actions that generate waste. This sustainable approach echoes the timeless and enduring nature of the artifacts that inspire my art, capturing a sense of movement frozen in time, akin to an organic fossil.


YeJin Choi
Plants serve as a medium of communication, and among them, flowers are symbols that convey deeper, implicit meanings.
Just as flowers are given as gifts to celebrate occasions like birthdays and weddings, they offer us emotional comfort and happiness.
Blooming refers to the moment a flower opens, which occurs only after various conditions such as water, sunlight, and nutrients are fulfilled. This is when the flower reaches its full potential, its vitality
at its peak. A fully bloomed flower is the result of the continuous life processes within it, and through this, we can experience the vibrancy of life. The liveliness expressed by the flower evokes feelings of happiness, psychological healing, and a sense of stability.
Shrinkles is a type of plastic that can be used to draw pictures like on paper, using various coloring tools such as colored pencils. When heated, this material shrinks—up to about one-seventh of its original size causing the drawing to become more intricate and delicate. The way it changes shape as it shrinks feels like watching the rapid growth process of a plant. By transforming the image of flowers into jewelry, I aim to provide a source of emotional comfort, offering a moment of peace and solace.
I create a metal frame using wax casting, and then assemble flower petals made from Shrinkles to complete the artwork.
The design typically repeats a single shape, and depending on the direction of the repetition, the piece gives the impression of either rising or expanding.