A frog, a squid, a puffer fish, an ice cream cone, a rocket ship, a mushroom, a heart-shaped padlock? These are the unlikely characters at the center of the Harry Lambert Pandora Wonders collaboration, the first chapter of a new multi-year initiative in which the Danish jeweler invites a creative collaborator each year to reinterpret one of its signature materials. Act I focuses on freshwater baroque pearls, placing them in the hands of the British stylist whose exacting eye and playful sensibility, honed through work with clients including Emma Corrin, Alexander Skarsgård, and Harry Styles, helped transform the pearl into a contemporary fashion staple.

The collection features 11 limited-edition dangle charms, each built around a unique baroque pearl that is micro-pierced, hand-set, and finished in 14k gold plating. Below, Lambert discusses the making of the Harry Lambert Pandora Wonders collection, shrinking personality into charm-sized form, the meaning of pearls in 2026, and the garden water bucket that inspired the frog.

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ARACELI OLAECHEA: You’ve described your work as building characters. A charm is the smallest possible version of that. How do you fit an entire personality into something the size of a thumbnail?

HARRY LAMBERT: Wow, that’s a very good question. Yeah, I do talk about character building a lot of the time, especially in my editorial work. In my head, I kind of build up a story or narrative around the model, the person who’s in the shoot. That way, even if the audience reading the magazine or looking at the images doesn’t know who that character is, I do. I think that helps me build the clothes. Would they wear that? Why wouldn’t they wear that? That kind of thing.

How do you get all that character into a charm? I think, especially with Pandora charms and this world, jewelry is one of the most personal things that you can wear. Especially when I’m working with talent, I think it’s really challenging to actually get jewelry for them because I do feel like it’s something you invest in. It’s something that you normally personally pick, unless it’s maybe a wedding ring or something like that. It’s something so personal that you imprint your personality, your emotion, and your memories onto that charm.

So I think the charm doesn’t have to scream the story to the world. I think you know the story behind it and why you’re wearing it. I started to think about the specific charms that really mean a lot to me, and there are some that I think mean a lot to other people. Then I think there’s also this world where it doesn’t necessarily have to have a meaning or a big personality. You can just love it, and that’s what I hope with this collection.

Courtesy of Pandora

AO: You once described pearls as transgressive. Now you’ve built an entire collection around them. Has the meaning of a pearl changed for you?

HL: Has the meaning changed? I don’t think so. I feel like pearls have had their journey. It’s quite surreal to think that maybe ten years ago, boys wearing pearls was so directional. Not controversial, but it was something people thought, “Whoa, okay.” Shocking, maybe, to some people. Whereas now, pearls feel less gendered. I see so many boys just wearing a set of pearls now, and it brings a smile to my face.

I’m not saying I am the only reason that happened. There was Pharrell and A$AP Rocky and Comme des Garçons, and many people using pearls, and they have forever. But I just think they came into the world of pop culture at a certain time, and now they feel, I would rather not say normal, but they feel easy, wearable, and everyday.

So I think it was fun to work with freshwater baroque pearls and give them another life, another feeling, I guess. What’s so clever is seeing how the design team was able to give them character and give them new life. The sourcing process of finding similarly shaped pearls was amazing, but everyone who gets a charm is going to have one that’s slightly different. I think that’s super exciting and really fun. I don’t know if the meaning has changed, but I think it’s just a new chapter in the life of a pearl.

AO: As a stylist, you’re known for introducing people to things they might not have found themselves. With Pandora, you stepped into an established world. How do you make it your own?

HL: I feel like I see Pandora Wonders as another chapter of Pandora. I think everyone knows the world of Pandora and charms, the world of gifting, memory-making, and acknowledging those moments through gifts and charms. I think this is just another chapter to evolve people’s knowledge of the brand and the craftsmanship that goes into it. You can see that through these charms. I think that’s reflected in the fact that Dover Street Market is going to stock the charms in London. That really excites me.

It’s about adding another chapter to the Pandora world, showing their skills and their storytelling, and just being involved in that. Even down to the styling of the collection, we traditionally see Pandora charms stacked and mixed and matched, which I love, and we have done that in the campaign. But we also shot the charms by themselves on a chain. Pandora does that as well, but we just took another branch, another little chapter of Pandora, and moved on to another story in this storytelling. I think that’s what’s really fun about Pandora Wonders.

Courtesy of Pandora

AO: You’ve said cultural commentary is often a byproduct of your work. Did you think about the symbolism of pairing pearls with squid, mushrooms, and rocket ships, or did that emerge afterward?

HL: I don’t want to diminish the thought process behind things. However, a lot of the time I come from a place of thinking about what is joyful, what is fun, what would I like to wear, and what would I like to see people wearing. I think sometimes the story comes after that.

Some people come in creatively with a clear message, and that’s all good. But I find that if I come in wanting to make a point, or make something mean something, or have it represent something from the beginning, sometimes you stunt your own creative freedom and the storytelling. Some things can have meaning, and some things can symbolize something to you, but I don’t think that always needs to be the first thing people read or understand about them.

I think that’s key with jewelry, especially. You need to imprint your story onto it, your symbolism onto it, because everyone will have a different relationship with a mushroom. It might mean something entirely different to someone else. The puffer fish might mean something different, or something might not mean anything to you, but you just love it. Then you gift it to someone, and it means something.

AO: Pandora Wonders is designed as a long-term collaborative platform. Did you think about what creative legacy you might be leaving behind for future collaborators?

HL: Oh, that’s so interesting. I like to think… again, I know this is very self-indulgent; I don’t know what the word is, but there is something I love about pop culture and about being part of creating a memory or a moment that people look back on. I kind of enjoy it when I look back at work from five years ago and it feels dated, or it feels of a moment, because I think that’s important.

I love the idea of timelessness, but I also enjoy the idea of a moment that can date, that can then start to feel nostalgic, that can start to feel old. I don’t love the idea that the iconic look is just a T-shirt and jeans. I love the idea of something that, in that moment, felt so perfectly correct, and maybe we look back on it now and think, “Oh my God, we’d never do that now,” but at the time it felt so right. I think that’s the kind of legacy I love.

Courtesy of Pandora

AO: You have mentioned your studio in London is filled with Polaroids, memorabilia, and collected objects. How much of this collection came directly from these surrounding things?

HL: Yeah, my desk is full of toys, key rings, jewelry, books, and things that I’ve picked up along the way. Some things definitely pull from that world. They pull from a world that is surreal, fun, and joyful. I don’t have anything that was necessarily pulled directly from my desk of trinkets, but it definitely comes from the world that I love.

AO: Most of your work starts with a person. What changes when the thing you’re designing has no wearer attached to it? Was designing charms in a way more personal than styling clothes?

HL: I feel like jewelry is probably one of the most personal things you can wear. The one specific charm, the frog, feels the most personal to me. It’s inspired by when I was a child. We had a water bucket in our garden, and every spring there would be tadpoles in the water bucket. Then one day, all the frogs would escape from the water bucket. That memory is where the charm came from, so that charm is specifically personal to me.

Harry Lambert Pandora Wonders Act I is now available in limited quantities at select Pandora stores and Pandora.net, with exclusive stock at Dover Street Market London.

Harry Lambert Pandora Wonders Act I, courtesy of Pandora