Catherine Wu is an Australian designer and founder of the Sydney-based brand The Traace.  Her work gathers the various threads of her philosophy, where beautiful things of human endeavour can speak about our links with the worlds of natural processes and cultural heritage, where time and fragments of memories intersect. 

From bespoke and one-of-a-kind pieces to small collections, Catherine crafts designs that synthesise fossilised life and antiquity as the manifest expressions of time in space.  The past finds continuity with the present envisaged through a fresh, contemporary perspective.

 

      

A diversity of sources interconnect in Catherine's work - from her Chinese heritage and idyllic youth in outback Australia, to her global travels and love for sunny Sydney, to her background in menswear design and academic research.  

As a young designer, Catherine started a self-entitled menswear label in Sydney before embarking on work as a menswear designer abroad.  Her subsequent PhD in cultural evolutionary theory entitled; 'Darwin's New Clothes: a neo-Darwinian metalogic of cultural evolutionary theory', examines the ways through which we engage with the "traces" of human histories.   

Since 2015, Catherine began creating one-of-a-kind and custom jewellery pieces for friends and clients she met throughout her travels.  The Traace was launched as an expression of those wider interconnections.

 

   

 

In forging a deeper dialogue with the past and present, Catherine works with fossils and culturally distinctive artefacts, non-precious and rare materials.  Past stories are reimagined in contemporary life by incorporating handcrafted elements including hand carved gemstones, enamelling, and Old World cut stones alongside pop culture inspired graphic shapes and hues.  Filtered through her design eye for clean lines and abstraction, pieces are set in metals ranging from 9k and 14k gold, through to the icy crispness of white gold and 925 sterling silver.

Working closely with a workshop in Jaipur, the pieces are handcrafted by artisans using methods which are steeped in the long, rich heritage of artisan jewellers, lapidarists and goldsmiths in India.  By maintaining the qualities of the maker's hand, each distinctive design becomes a testament to preserving an array of unique characteristics with contemporary relevance.