Leyla Taranto
Jeweller
/
MunichSchmuckFair2025
Published: 06.02.2026
News!
6 new pieces from the series Remains-beads have been added to the artist's profile.
- Mail:
- leylataranto
tozdesign.com
Bio
Leyla Taranto is a jewellery designer based in Istanbul, Turkey, with a BA in Sociology. Her interest in jewellery, which began with a childhood fondness for bracelets and necklaces and was later formalised with atelier training, is now a full-time passion and occupation. Through her brand name toz design, Taranto continues to experiment with both traditional and non-traditional materials for jewellery design, including scrap materials.Statement
Remains - BeadsThis compact collection is a small offshoot of my ongoing Remains series.
As always, the pieces are made from leftover wooden picture-frame fragments this time paired with findings taken from a string of prayer beads, simply because I love their shapes. The collection includes brooches and earrings.
The forms are kept deliberately simple. The wood is cut and shaped into straightforward forms, using whatever fragments happen to be available, while the beads bring in a sense of playfulness. As with my earlier work, the backs are hand-coloured. For this series, the scale is a bit smaller compared to some of my previous work.
Working with leftover wooden frame fragments means I never know if I’ll come across the same piece again and that’s exactly why the collection naturally became one of a kind, with slight differences even between pieces that seem similar.
La-di-da Collection
La-di-da brings baroque opulence into a contemporary, wearable form with a cheeky twist.
Traditionally, highly decorative motifs like the wooden ornaments used in this collection would be applied to interiors, architecture, or furniture rather than worn as jewellery. I wanted to transform these ornate elements into wearable artifacts—brooches! By doing so, I reimagined their purpose, turning them into personal adornments rather than static embellishments of space.
To balance the boldness of these architectural decorative forms, which I painted with bright colours, I incorporated a delicate pearl circle. The pearls nod to classic luxury, while the sculpted decorative piece keeps the design playful.
Tulips in a Vase collection
When invited by curator Ali Bakova to participate in the 'Tulipomania' (referring to a speculative frenzy named "Tulip Mania" in 17th century Holland over the sale of tulip bulbs) exhibition, I recalled a theme I worked on many years ago, so I revisited my Flower(s) in a Vase pin collection, singling out the “Tulips”.
Tulips happen to be flowers that have had two vases exclusively designed for them.”Tulipiere” is a Dutch vase made to hold many tulips, with a separate opening for each tulip; and the ”Laledan”—drawing its name from ‘lale’, the Turkish word for tulip— is designed to hold only one tulip. I chose the shape of these two vases for my pins. In this selection, as a contrast with the specialised vessels Tulipiere and Laledan, I also include a bottle and a jug which, unlike the others, were designed for a different function altogether—storing and the transporting liquids—but have historically taken on the role of a vase in addition to their primary usage.
Remains collection
To create the Remains collection, I salvaged discarded ornamental scrap wood pieces from the floor of an Istanbul custom frame shop. Without knowing what I would do with them, I took the remains to my studio. Back in the woodshop, I began to experiment with the fragments, and through a series of innovative choices, created one-of-a-kind or limited editions consisting of new forms that reflected my own conceptual, stylistic and structural interpretations of the original scraps.
As a designer, I found it gratifying to be able to provide these scraps an unanticipated usefulness and to enable them to recover a wholeness all their own by playing with the juxtaposition of what is precious (wood) and what is not precious (waste).
CV 
On sale at
Events
Publications
News!
6 new pieces from the series Remains-beads have been added to the artist's profile.
- Mail:
- leylatarantotozdesign.com
newsletter
Get the latest information about the international Jewellery Scene sent directly to your mailbox every week. View previous issues
-
Zhipeng Wang
Munich, Germany -
Hannah Offermann
Aachen, Germany -
Misato Seki
Kanagawa, Japan -
Thierry Bontridder
Wavre, Belgium -
Eva Fernandez Martos
Nottingham, United Kingdom -
William Harper
New York, United States -
Arata Fuchi
Florence, Italy -
Helen Clara Hemsley
Copenhagen, Denmark -
Tobias Birgersson
Stockholm, Sweden -
Martina Obid Mlakar
Ljubljana, Slovenia -
Timothy Information Limited
Penge, United Kingdom -
Gabrijela Kozarić Budiša
Zagreb, Croatia -
Nicole Schuster
Munich, Germany -
Sari Liimatta
Lappeenranta, Finland -
Eunhee Cho
Seoul, South Korea
