Designer's creativity shines through in her jewelry

One of the few, if not the only Asian woman artist breaking into the male-dominant Western jewelers' world, Chao built her career through a distinctive style featuring architectural shapes, lifelike organic forms and the strong emotional response they inspire from the audience.

One of her creations, the Winter Leaves Necklace, won the Masterpiece London Highlight Award in the United Kingdom and was selected as "the Best Jewelry Piece of the Fair" at the Masterpiece London fair in 2019. Philip Hewat-Jaboor, chairman of the fair, said that "Cindy Chao's jewelry has a very different element: the sculptural quality, the emotional investment, the real intellectual curiosity behinds the designs, and the extraordinary combination of stones are put together in a way that no one has ever seen before".

Another piece, a Royal Butterfly brooch was inducted into the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in the United States in 2010. It was the American museum's first piece by a designer from China's Taiwan province. The museum said displaying the piece as part of its permanent collection "ensures that generations to come may enjoy the colors, gems and craftsmanship of this timeless piece".