Zen of jewellery

IN the exclusive world of high jewellery, there is one creator who has put Asia on the map: Wallace Chan. His calm demeanour, Confucian-style beard and Chinese black suit stand out in the glamorous universe of jewellery designers.

Born in Fuzhou, China, in 1956, Chan moved to Hong Kong at the age of five. At 13, he left school to become an apprentice to a sculptor making Chinese religious iconography. After a few years, he went on to study Western sculpture and founded his own gemstone workshop in 1974. His company, renamed Wallace Chan International in 2007, operates two workshops - one in Hong Kong and another in Macau.

Over the years, Chan earned global fame for his technical innovations, including the gemstone carving technique named after him (the Wallace cut) as well as jade refining and luminosity enhancing technology.