About Us
What began as a desire to combine graphic design and jewellery has since evolved into a label with its very own facet — characterized by defined lines, thoughtful design and fine details.
Meet the founder, Alexandra Schwarzwald — the creative mind behind Fine Principles.
With a keen eye for detail and a visual vocabulary that speaks the language of geometry and the grid, Alexandra harnesses the potential of folding techniques to create multifaceted jewellery based on a meticulous system of order.
But let’s start at the beginning. After graduating with a BA in Communication Design, Alexandra discovered her passion for jewellery-making in 2016. She shifted her focus from graphic design to product design and began crafting wax models by hand. From the very start of her journey, she approached her studies systematically. In doing so, she explored facets and their effects across various dimensions.
Alexandra was looking for new ways to design jewellery and subsequently immersed herself in the world of digital folding. Driven by her newfound enthusiasm for 3D modelling, she shifted her focus from analogue wax modelling to digital design, in which she recognised great potential.
In August 2021, she took a creative break and began exploring shapes created using different folding patterns. After months of testing and prototyping, her first collection, the ‘Series XF’, was finally ready to be unveiled to the public. The launch took place in October 2022 at the BLICKFANG design fair in Hamburg, where the jewellery was shown for the first time.
A principle as old as nature itself — folding.
The term ‘falten’ is firmly established in our language — according to the DWDS (Digital Dictionary of the German Language), the Old High German word ‘faldan’ first appeared around 800 AD and evolved over the following centuries from ‘valten’ and ‘valden’ to ‘vōlden’ in the 9th century. From ‘faldōn’ and ‘faltōn’ to, finally, ‘falten’. Thus, various meanings such as ‘to bend’, ‘to interlace’ or ‘to curve’ were in use.
Folding has multiple meanings and is, in the truest sense of the word, a product of nature. Over the course of evolution, landscapes have folded, as have leaves, flowers, buds, shells, snail shells, mushroom caps and insect wings. We too carry these folds within us — on our skin and deep within our innermost being, in the form of the spiral double helix of DNA.
To this day, folding continues to hold a lasting fascination — for scientists, engineers, mathematicians, educators, artists, designers and hobbyists of all ages. Yet it is by no means limited to simply creasing paper. Folding can be applied from one dimension to two and three dimensions and is independent of the material. It becomes a common language between nature, science and design — a silent logic that unfolds anew time and again.
The façade of this wedding venue, designed by Hironaka Ogawa & Associates, Japan. From the book ‘Complete Pleats — Pleating Techniques for Fashion, Architecture and Design’ by Paul Jackson.
Inspired by Paul Jackson’s approach — his universe of folds.
Since 1983, Paul Jackson has been a professional paper folder, paper artist, paper engineer, author, and teacher — specializing in origami and the art of folding. In addition, he ventures into other realms and explores folding in education, mathematics, physics, music, and, of course, in nature.
To date, Paul Jackson has written over 40 books and taught students in design disciplines such as architecture, fashion, ceramics, jewellery, product design and textiles at more than 80 universities and colleges across 13 countries.
Together with his wife, the Israeli origami artist and educator Miri Golan, he founded the ‘Folding Together’ project and launched the ‘Origametria’ programme, which uses origami to teach geometry. Since 2018, it has been included in the national mathematics curriculum by the Israeli Ministry of Education.
More than 30,000 primary school-aged children now learn origami every week, not only to boost their self-confidence, but also to develop their motor skills, hand-eye coordination, logical thinking, concentration, aesthetic sense, three-dimensional perception and the basics of geometry.
“If music is mathematics made audible, origami is mathematics made visible.” — Paul Jackson
Series as a system, IDs as names — a logical structure.
The Series XF is based on the ‘X-Form’ folding technique. As the name suggests, this creates a repeating pattern of triangles that come together to form successive X-like structures.
The second collection, Series DX, builds on this principle and develops it further. The underlying grid is shifted and mirrored, creating a new, distinct geometry. A delicate interplay of triangles, formed from double X-structures, conveys both movement and balance.
Each piece is identified by a unique ID consisting of a combination of numbers and letters. For example, the code ‘XFCE642S’ stands for the Series ‘X-Form’, the ‘circle earring’ category, the number of facets ‘64’, the material thickness ‘2’ and the size ‘S’.
This creative flexibility opens up a wide range of expressive possibilities — each different grid develops its own rhythm and a distinctive visual texture.