About

Zoe McBride is a maker and designer creating an evolving collection of sculptural pieces made to adorn the body and space. Carved and sculpted from jewellers’ wax by hand, each piece is a result of play and experimentation, honouring the form, function, and sentiment of jewellery with a timeless twist, creating unique pieces for the curious collector.

Born in France to a Swiss mother and a New Zealand father, Zoe grew up in Blenheim, New Zealand, where she was introduced to jewellery making by traditional jeweller Noel Herd, who began offering night classes after retiring from practice. Drawn to the tactile nature of making, she attended these classes over a number of years while moving between study, travel, and living abroad. In 2016, she was introduced to jewellers’ wax, a material that opened up a new realm of possibility within jewellery and continues to underpin her work today.

Having studied Spatial Design, Zoe’s approach is shaped by an ongoing interest in form, proportion, process and how objects relate to the body and space. She made jewellery alongside working at a contemporary art gallery in Auckland before committing to the practice full time in 2023. Much of her work is commission-based, where clients are drawn to the idea of having a unique piece made for them- each ring a variation on the last, part of an ongoing interplay between maker, object and wearer.

A Note on Making

I make because I like to make. I always have, though for a long time I didn’t think of it as a practice, it was simply part of being. Growing up, making didn’t need to be named or protected- it just happened. Now, making carries a sense of slowness and consciousness that feels essential, and I’m drawn to the people who value that too. Those who care about the handmade, the unique, and the time spent shaping something into being.

I’m an object lover. I notice how much more I value things when I know something about the hands that made them, or when I can sense the presence of those hands in the object itself. With that comes an awareness of time and energy, of effort held quietly within a form.

I began making for myself, to satisfy that desire. Now I make for others, and while the work is still shaped by what I’m drawn to, it’s also a less selfish practice.. one that involves translating something for someone else. That shift carries a certain vulnerability. But it’s also what pushes me. I’ve come to appreciate the constraints of commission work, and the challenge of making something that must sit within another life, another body, another story.

I’m also drawn to construction and deconstruction. To how things are made and to the quiet giveaways that reveal process. I like being able to see how something has come together, to read the story of its making in the object itself. This carries through my work in the fluid forms that connect the setting and band in my five stone rings. What began as a practical, make-and-peel-back solution became, on reflection, something with more depth and intrigue.

Those fluid joins are tell-tale signs of things coming together. They're signs of seams, of heat, of a softer, past material. They hold traces of construction, materiality, and process, and hint at what came before the final form. In many ways, these moments are keys to the piece: small signals that speak quietly about how it was made, rather than hiding it.