My bachelor project stemmed from a deep fascination with the widespread longing for nostalgia, a sentiment I have observed in everything from products to films and art. This longing often resurfaces during turbulent times, such as recent years marked by pandemics, wars, inflation, and environmental crises.

During my research into nostalgia in design, I discovered the Danish fashion brand Sophia Khaled. Specializing in knitwear, the brand is known for its distinctive universe, merging the cute with the playful and the eerie. Now, the brand seeks to expand its identity by introducing a new product category: jewelry.

Expanding into a new product category presents both opportunities and challenges. Ensuring a successful transition requires careful attention to maintaining the brand’s unique identity and aesthetic while appealing to its target audience. This led to my research question:

How can the fashion brand Sophia Khaled create its first jewelry collection in a way that continues its brand identity and aesthetic while resonating with its target audience?

To explore this, I conducted the first two phases of the Design Thinking method—Empathize and Define—focusing on brand identity, aesthetics, and target audience. These subjects was thorougly researched through my written thesis with the help of visual analasys, a brand brief, moodboards, an aesthetic sustainabillity strategy, design drivers, and by defining the target group though different kind of business models such as SMP and  SMUK – model as well as creating  a persona.

My analysis revealed that Sophia Khaled’s identity is built on five core values: duality, magic, emotional openness, individuality, and sustainability. Among these, duality plays a particularly crucial role in shaping the brand’s aesthetic. This is reflected both visually through colors and silhouettes and symbolically in patterns and storytelling. Additionally another important visual part – magic – manifests itself in the nostalgic references to childhood.

Regarding the target audience, my research highlighted that they see fashion as a means of self-expression, both visually and emotionally. They strive to stand out while maintaining a strong desire for sustainability, despite economic barriers to accessing sustainable products.

To align with the brand’s sustainability profile and the target audience’s values, I developed an aesthetic sustainability strategy for the collection. This strategy emphasizes the importance of the brand’s already established ability to create magical objects while also challenging consumer expectations. The goal is to design jewelry that makes the wearer feel unique while still maintaining small aspects of harmony and familiarity in the visual language.

From my findings, I established five design drivers:

• Magic

• Duality

• Standing out

• Sustainability

• Silver

All the tools that was created through the written part of my bachelor thesis layed the foundation for a well structured design process. 

The ideation phase involved extensive brainstorming, where I explored multiple directions, from jewelry inspired by nostalgic 90s candy to double-sided pieces and shoulder jewelry that challenge traditional placements. While my design drivers provided essential elements that encapsulate the brand’s identity, aesthetic, and audience preferences, I realized that they encompassed so many elements that designing a cohesive collection became challenging.

To refine my approach, I took a step back and redefined the overarching theme for the collection. Revisiting my interview with the brand, I noted that their upcoming fashion collection was titled Fairy Witch Couture. This revelation inspired me to align the jewelry collection with the same theme for consistency and a stronger narrative.

Symbolism plays a significant role in Sophia Khaled’s universe. By analyzing the brand’s existing symbols, I identified four core motifs, the bat, magic wand, rose and 666 that could be translated into jewelry while maintaining brand coherence. These symbols and the overall theme provided a focused foundation for my design process, allowing me to start the sketching process sketching. 

After quick sketching i chose 3 main directions/idears which i started developing in Rhino to play around with the ideas and make a lot of different versions of the different pieces.

If you want to understand the thoughts  behind the final mini jewelry collection go back to project. Here youn can find an in depth description of the pieces.