European Women's Handball Championship and Kuolmi

Given that the European Championship is being held in Slovenia for the first time, the organizers wanted to make a special effort to present Slovenia

and above all the placement of the female aspect and the view of sustainability, oriented towards the future.

In the combination of all these values, several ambassadors of the championship were invited to participate, as a special feature

 however, they wanted to enhance the medals themselves with sustainable principles.

In this context and due to previous creations and international collaborations,

 they thought I was a suitable choice. This makes me very happy and I am very grateful that they offered me cooperation.

It seems to me that with this we have taken a step forward in connecting different directions that have existed on their own until now.

The connection between art and sport, as we can see, is something that really fits together.

I hope that by doing this, we are opening the possibility of cooperation to various artists who would represent countries just as sovereignly as athletes sovereignly represent them.

According to the agreement with the Handball Federation of Slovenia, we connected, and through them we established communication with the international staff, and together in mutual communication we came to the final form that will represent the championship.

I myself wanted to highlight the female aspect with a natural, organic shape, which naturally corresponds more to the feminine principle, but by adding the classical shape of the medal, it represents the principles of discipline, perseverance and determination.

Of course, my design style cannot do without coal, because it is my basic material.

It is precisely coal in its diamond shape that illustrates and connects everything together in the principle of sustainability.

The medals are large, with a blue championship ribbon, and above all they are heavy, very heavy.

Hard as the struggle was hard for them. People always ask me which coal is in my creations, and I can say that Zasava coal is found here, so the winners will take a piece of Slovenia with them wherever they go. I have to admit that, like most of my projects, this was the first example of designing a large amount of medals, from start to finish.

Prototyping is always a kind of research work, and certainly now the final medals are much more perfect than the prototypes, because through them you test the appearance of different ideas, and of course, how and in what time frame they can be produced.

In the beginning, we played with three different designs, i.e. also three different styles and prototypes.

I have to admit that the first one came from my own view of what medals should be.

So, in this conceptual design, my style of design and especially blackness was strongly emphasized.

However, even if it was an excellent example of artistic expression, it was very inappropriate for the championship itself, because the purpose of the medals was to upgrade the competition itself and not stand out,

as we usually do in an artistic context.

And so, in the development of the medals themselves, I realized that I had to honor the sporting spirit of the competition, which was perfectly expressed in the form that was agreed upon as final.

So that I am extremely satisfied that we have reached a common language and I hope that this becomes a constant both for me and for the organizers of the championships.

There are quite a lot of medals, thirty-six for each team, so that not only the female competitors, but also all the other members of the teams get their medals.

Each medal also received a blue velvet commemorative box, on which there is a seal with the logo of the championship, and inside, the date and place of the championship are embossed in silk. You know, I usually design jewelry and I want each piece to be kept in a nice packaging because of its value - so I made sure that the medal received the same treatment.

 After all, medals are athletes' jewelry, right? In ancient times, people adorned themselves with bear skin and teeth to show how brave they were and what they were capable of, but nowadays jewelry has taken over the role of decoration, and medals of achievement. Now we have combined the two together again.

I hope that the winners are satisfied and that through them the memories of the championship will be preserved in the most beautiful light.

 Medals were made not only for first, second and third place, but also for fourth, so the championship is rounded around all the most successful teams, even if they reached the podium but not.

Thus, coal, as an idea about a material that has lost its meaning and found it again in another form, will summarize the principle of sport, sustainability and a new ecological view of the world. Every thing is transformed, failure into success, we just must not give up.

The coal, which I myself shape into jewelry, represents this principle of sustainability and ecology and the transformation of the existing already around the world.

For the second year now, as an invitee, I have been attending events such as the events around the awarding of the prestigious Oscars, Grammys, we are currently preparing to participate in the Golden Globes event, my jewelry is worn by Miss India and Miss California.

the proud owners among the athletes are also Mr. Primož Roglič, it was also given to Luka Dončič. The jewelry has traveled from Japan to Alaska and somehow represents a piece of Slovenia that reminds them of home among Slovenians abroad, and on the other hand, Slovenians like to take it abroad with them, because as a souvenir it is very authentic, interesting and above all, originally designed.

Recently, however, like medals, special pieces that somehow do not belong in mass production have begun to be produced.

Among them, I can count the heart that I made from coal for the statue of Miner Prometheus, an 8-meter-high iron statue that stands above Trbovlje and represents the tourist attraction of Trbovelj, and in the past, as many as two Miss Slovenia wore crowns from my hands. In cooperation with the Slovenian company Alpina, we produced the first pair of boots decorated with coal jewelry.

Such projects, which have a very high level of challenge and above all are original, new and interesting, are the greatest meaning of my design.

My coal design has been developing for the past seven years, the first two years I spent getting to know coal and learning how to protect it from aging.

We know each other well now, and I think that sometimes his weaknesses for my design are exactly what makes me so happy to pick him up. The KUOLMi company is slowly expanding with more challenging projects, as a member of the Katapult accelerator I can say,

that I have an expanded team that can handle the projects that come our way and I hope that doesn't change. In the future, I wish that we can spread the idea of renewable resources, the different use of coal and the jewelry of the KUOLMi brand to places where they have not yet heard of it, that it inspires people, and above all, I wish for further collaborations with the world of sports and getting to know magnificent athletes who they overcome the limits of the possible.

The curtain has fallen on the European Women's Handball Championship. 🤾🏻‍♀️ In the end, it doesn't matter to us who won the European top, because for us the winners are you!