'Bling-bling. synonym for expensive, often flashy jewellery' UrbanDictionary.com
The theme for the Sydney Esquisse Festival was shopping, a playful prompt that encouraged designers to rethink everyday retail culture. For Ruth McDermott, this theme landed close to home. Her favourite shop was not a boutique or luxury label but Bunnings, the iconic Australian hardware store. Its aisles of chains, fittings, and metal components became an unexpected source of inspiration, offering a raw, industrial counterpoint to the glossy world of fashion.
Bling Bling emerged from this collision of influences at a moment when fashion and design were shifting away from the restrained minimalism of the 1990s and toward a renewed appetite for spectacle. Jewellery once pared back and “tasteful” had re entered the cultural conversation as something bold, expressive, and deliberately excessive. This installation embraced that shift, translating the language of adornment into a luminous sculptural form for the Absolut Bar.
Constructed from plated silver and gold chains suspended from a spun aluminium top plate, the work reimagined jewellery at an architectural scale. The chains cascaded like oversized pendants, catching and scattering the warm glow of halogen light. In doing so, Bling Bling transformed the bar environment into a playful meditation on glamour, nightlife, and the performative nature of luxury. Rather than simply referencing fashion, the installation exaggerated it, leaning into the humour, bravado, and theatricality of early 2000s bling culture. The shimmering mass of chains where not just sparkle decoration but attitude.
At 80 cm in scale, the work was intimate yet impactful, a concentrated burst of shine that captured the spirit of the festival: creative, irreverent, and unapologetically bold. Bling Bling celebrated the pleasure of adornment and the joy of visual indulgence, reminding audiences that sometimes the most meaningful design statements are the ones that dare to dazzle.
Artist: Ruth McDermott.
Date: 2003.
Medium: Plated chain, spun aluminium top plate, Halogen lighting.
Dimension: 80 cm.
Location: Sydney Esquisse
Special Thanks: Play Projects.
ABSOLUT BAR
