A highlight of the 2006 OroArezzo fair was “The Project House: From an Emotion to a Jewel,” a program intended to encourage future designers to break out of the “golden cage” of traditional jewelry design. The theme, “embrace,” required participants—including designers, jewelry professionals, and students from four area design and jewelry schools—to translate the emotion from a photo of an embrace into a piece of jewelry. Photos used for inspiration covered everything from lovers to soldiers to children embracing, and even a few of people embracing their pets.

Participants literally worked inside a golden cage, an area cordoned off with golden-yellow fencing inside the fair. First they viewed the photographs, all from the Magnum Photos agency. Then they were to design and create, on the spot, a piece of jewelry inspired by a particular photograph. The spectacular results were presented three days later at a gala the evening of April 11, in the hall of the Commodities Exchange in Arezzo.