EXPERIMENTAL — the Story of the Form

By Dmitry Strugovshchikov, founder of STRUGA

Updated August 2026

EXPERIMENTAL — a zone of pure creativity.

Here STRUGA experiments with form and material, works across different styles, and steps beyond jewelry — into clothing, interior objects, any object design.

In jewelry, EXPERIMENTAL takes the familiar things around us and reimagines them — this is how Triple Drills, Mushroom, Pills and BearRabbit appeared.

The family belongs to the world LAB. A world, in STRUGA's language, is a register of the brand — not a product category, not a section of a catalogue. LAB speaks the language of experiment, prototype, exception: forms and things that allow themselves to be a prototype or a provocation. EXPERIMENTAL is the core of that world.

How the form was born

EXPERIMENTAL has no single point of origin — and that is not a gap in the story, it is how the family is built. EXPERIMENTAL is not a numbered form; the founder's own wording is exact: it is a zone.

In the world CODEX, STRUGA births a form that did not exist before and carries it through different types of objects — from a chain link to a pendant, from a carabiner to an earring. EXPERIMENTAL moves in the opposite direction: the form already exists in the world — as a pin, a mushroom, a rabbit — and STRUGA carries it into silver. LAB repeats the surrounding world in its work: the language of nature, familiar things, toys, small elements, carabiners of different sizes. Work here can run in an entirely different style and speak to a different audience.

• CODEX starts with a new form and carries it through different object types.
• EXPERIMENTAL starts with a familiar thing and changes the material, scale or use through silver.

How the experiment reaches silver

The path from idea to metal stays the same as for all STRUGA silver. Each stage answers a different question:

1. Wax model: fixes proportion, volume and the first readable silhouette.
2. Silicone mold: preserves that model so the form can pass into casting.
3. Silver 925: gives the object its wearable metal and physical weight.
4. Hand finishing: resolves edges, surface and the traces that remain visible on the final object.

The zone also talks to the rest of the brand. BearRabbit carries a body that repeats the form of the BLADE link — a familiar thing meeting the brand's own architecture. The same object shows how far an experiment can grow: BearRabbit may become a separate family under the name Beautiful Frankenstein. That is a working version, not an accomplished fact.

LAB is a forge of ideas: a zone of experimental drops and limited collections, including clothing and interior objects. An experiment here can lead to the birth of a new family.

What the family holds today

Today EXPERIMENTAL names four objects: Triple Drills, Mushroom, Pills, BearRabbit.

As of 2026, EXPERIMENTAL remains a zone, not a numbered form: four objects — Triple Drills, Mushroom, Pills, BearRabbit — each a familiar thing re-read in silver 925 without rhodium plating. Where CODEX births a form that did not exist, EXPERIMENTAL moves the opposite way — the form already exists in the world, and STRUGA carries it into silver.

• Triple Drills: the heavy-ring example.
• Mushroom and Pills: familiar silhouettes translated into silver objects.
• BearRabbit: one form used as a pendant and as an earring.

Current inventory, not a sequence

The list records what the zone holds right now. It does not assign an order, rank or common object type. Each name is evidence of the same method applied to a different familiar silhouette and a different place on the body today in the catalogue.

Four objects, four readings of the zone

Triple Drills lives among the heavy rings — rings made to hold visual weight: larger, more sculptural, more pronounced than the everyday form. In STRUGA this territory belongs to BRUTALISM, THORN, FUSED and Triple Drills.

BearRabbit is worn as a pendant and as an earring. Mushroom and Pills continue the same move: a familiar thing, read again in silver 925.

The world LAB also steps outside silver worn on the body: STRUGA works here with clothing and object design. The suit carries the name WAGI — the name of one specific model, not a clothing line.

Read the four names as examples of one method, not as four stages of a sequence. The common move is translation: something recognisable is kept legible while its material, weight and relationship to the body are reconsidered.

• Ring: Triple Drills concentrates the method on the hand.
• Pendant or earring: BearRabbit changes placement without becoming a ring.
• Beyond jewelry: WAGI shows LAB extending into clothing as one named model.

How the form lives on the body

An object, in STRUGA's language, is a thing with weight, form and surface, worn on the body. Triple Drills answers with weight: a heavy ring holds visual weight on the hand. BearRabbit on a chain is exactly the case the atlas of forms describes: a pendant is a form; what hangs from it is open.

Placement changes the reading before any story is added. The same experimental method can be concentrated around a finger, suspended from a chain or held at the ear. Compare three practical dimensions:

• Weight: where the object makes its presence physically felt.
• Silhouette: what remains recognisable from normal viewing distance.
• Movement: whether the form stays fixed on the hand or moves as a pendant or earring.

This is why object type matters even inside one zone. A ring, pendant and earring do not tell the same spatial story, although each can begin with a familiar thing translated into silver 925.

How Living Silver changes the surface

Then material takes over. Living Silver is STRUGA's term: this is what the brand calls its silver 925 left without rhodium plating. The object arrives light and darkens with time; the surface keeps changing with the one who wears it — friction brightens the raised edges, the recesses grow dark. Two identical objects on two different people will look different after a while, because the chemistry of skin is personal.

Natural patina is a map of how the thing is worn.

The beauty of this silver is in the traces of handwork — a slight imperfection, an unevenness, patina and darkening. Imperfection here is part of the beauty, not a defect.

• Raised edges become brighter through contact.
• Recesses hold the darker part of the surface.
• Hand-finished traces remain part of the object rather than being hidden by a uniform coating.

The result is not a promise about meaning or protection. It is a material fact: unplated silver 925 continues to react, and wear makes the distribution of light and dark specific to its owner.

What EXPERIMENTAL does not claim

Clear boundaries keep an experimental zone from turning into an invented mythology. The current evidence supports a small set of distinctions:

• Not a numbered form: EXPERIMENTAL is a zone that can hold unlike objects.
• Not the whole LAB world: LAB is the broader register; EXPERIMENTAL is one family inside it.
• Not a clothing line: WAGI is one named suit model within LAB's work beyond jewelry.
• Not a finished new family: Beautiful Frankenstein is a possible future name for BearRabbit's growth, explicitly a working version rather than an accomplished fact.
• Not a promise of protection: Living Silver describes unplated silver 925 and how its surface changes through ordinary wear.

These limits are productive in practice. They let the objects remain experimental without assigning them protection, destiny or a false shared origin. What connects the zone is the method: a familiar thing becomes a wearable silver object.

How to read and choose EXPERIMENTAL

If you choose by intention, LAB is for the experiment. EXPERIMENTAL is where a familiar thing becomes a silver object: view the EXPERIMENTAL family.

LAB is one of the five worlds of STRUGA. The LAB atlas gathers every family and piece that belongs to it.

Use the hierarchy in this order so that world, family and object do not collapse into one label:

1. World: LAB is the broader register of experiment, prototype and exception.
2. Zone: EXPERIMENTAL is the family where familiar things are re-read as objects.
3. Object: Triple Drills, Mushroom, Pills and BearRabbit are the named examples currently inside that zone.
4. Type: ring, pendant and earring describe how an object sits on the body, not which world it belongs to.

Start with the object type you will actually wear, then compare weight, movement and surface. Use the family page for the four current examples and the LAB atlas when you need the wider map.

Continue from the journal to a current STRUGA object: One Display Techno Bracelet.