Nick Von K Launched his newest collection, “Midnight Carnival”, on the night of the blue moon.  

 The white walls of the old Hopkinson Cundy gallery were a stark contrast from the richness and flamboyance of his extravagant jewellery. The space held nothing but a long banquet table, covered with a black tablecloth, with hundreds of lit candles running down its middle. Each piece was displayed on a velvet cushion to be examined and admired by the crowd of well-dressed people with drinks in hand.

There seemed to be a distinct narrative with two protagonists: the swan queen and the dragon queen, who made their appearances in the key pieces of the collection. All of the pieces depicted characters from some distant fantasy, where monkeys rode the heads of wolves, alley cats wore eye-patches, and pearl goddesses grew plum-trees for hair. Nick threw a note of humourous Kiwiana into the mix with a greenstone jellybean necklace, which echoed the greenstone jetplane necklace from his earlier “Jungle of Eden” collection.