Austy Lee captures the Ulysses butterfly in neon tourmaline and sapphire

The Ulysses butterfly, with its fourteen centimetre wingspan, produces colour through the microscopic structure of its scales rather than through pigment alone. That structural phenomenon, where light refracts across millions of tiny surfaces to create an electric iridescence, finds its parallel in Austy Lee’s Para Ulysses earrings, where the designer has captured the insect’s shimmering blue in the raw luminosity of Brazilian Paraiba tourmaline.

These are pieces that demand close study. Each earring unfolds like a wing in motion: the topmost petal holds a sliced Paraiba tourmaline in neon blue, surrounded by white diamonds that catch and hold light. Below it sits the larger wing form, built from layers of turquoise abalone shell inlaid with tiny indicolite tourmalines and sapphires from Sri Lanka in purplish blue. Black enamel traces the veins and contours, mimicking the underside of the actual butterfly’s wing. White diamonds continue to punctuate the edges, while small deep sapphires anchor the composition like the creature’s eyes.

The engineering beneath is 18k white gold. The effect, when these earrings catch the light, is of something alive and trembling on the earlobe, a fragment of the rainforest rendered in colour and craft. They belong to the Ītzpāpālōtl collection, each pair a singular expression of Austy Lee’s vision of natural form translated through the language of fine jewellery.

Imagery courtesy of Austy Lee (@austy_lee).