Traditionally cast in 925 sterling silver, Atlas has taken inspiration from the image of the man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders from Greek Mythology. However, in keeping with the insider collection Atlas takes the man inside, caging him in the pressures of the world and inverting the legend for a modern day twist.
Atlas is from the ‘Insider’ collection which is named as such due to the fact that each of the four designs feature a male figure trapped inside a structure, but in fact the meaning goes a little further.
At Saxons of Oxford we love to explore boundaries of design and embrace new techniques when approaching a project. We wanted our love for the seemingly impossible to come through in the ‘Insider’ Collection. Ultimately ‘Insider’ shows the ideas of entrapment and limitation, but spins them on their head through the fact that these seemingly impossible designs have been translated into jewellery and have overcome those boundaries. The impossible has become possible.
Atlas uses the myth of the eponymous Titan with the weight of the world on his shoulders, which was a punishment for the side he took in war against the Olympians. We took Atlas inside the sphere to represent the concept of restriction within the mind and the way a weight on our shoulders may in fact be more of a mental limit than a reality, bringing the mythological past into contact with the present.
