Sitting in the Cindy Chao Maison in Shanghai, an exclusive showroom designed by Dutch architect Tom Postma, Sweden artist Ingrid Donat and French designer Herve Van der Straeten, Chao shared her story on how she created her own jewelry house from the sitting room of her parents' home.

Chao's maternal grandfather was an architect, who used to design traditional Chinese temples, and her father is a sculptor. As a child she was sensitive to colors and space. "I was my father's first apprentice," she told China Daily on Nov 17. "He used to give me a piece of clay and let me play with it." The young Cindy learned from father the techniques and skills of sculpture, but more importantly it was his ideas that made the greatest impact. Whatever you create must be "as vibrant as it is in real life," he taught the daughter to "observe and pay attention to the tiniest details, before putting into forms what you have perceived".

Chao fell in love with the 18th century craftsmanship of jewelry, admiring the ultimate aesthetic pursuit. With the help of wax modeling (cire perdu), a well-designed jewelry piece could be a miniature sculpture, ready for appreciation from various perspectives.

However such perfectionism has largely been lost because of industrialization and modern business patterns.