Fashion

Calling All Jewelry Designers! Tiffany & Co. Is Launching a Design Residency in Abu Dhabi

BYMille Team

August 21, 2026

There are worse ways to kick-start a career in jewelry design than spending six months learning from Tiffany & Co. and potentially ending up at its New York headquarters. That, essentially, is what is on offer through the house’s latest project in the UAE.

Tiffany & Co. has teamed up with Design Commission Abu Dhabi (DCAD) to launch the Tiffany & Co. Design Residency Program, a new initiative dedicated specifically to jewelry and watch design. Ten UAE-based designers will be selected for the inaugural edition, which runs from November 2026 through April 2027 in Abu Dhabi.

Over the past decade, the country has invested heavily in building an infrastructure around art, fashion and design, from museums and biennales to grants, commissions and residency programs. Jewelry, despite being a particularly significant part of the region’s visual and material culture, has rarely received the same kind of structured attention.

This program makes a convincing case for changing that. Rather than simply putting Tiffany’s name on a local competition, the residency is built around the actual mechanics of making and designing. Participants will explore the conceptual, creative, and technical foundations of jewelry and watch design through mentorship, workshops, research, and material experimentation, while drawing from Emirati culture, architecture, and artistic heritage alongside Tiffany & Co.’s own design history.

The residency is open to UAE residents of all nationalities, meaning the definition of local talent reflects the country as it actually exists: a place where designers from dozens of backgrounds live, work, and build careers alongside one another. Applicants need foundational knowledge of jewelry and/or watch design and will be asked to submit a portfolio, with the open call running until Sept. 20.

Once selected, the 10 residents will attend weekly Saturday sessions at a dedicated venue in Abu Dhabi until April. Their work will then be presented at a Capstone Exhibition in May 2027, giving the designers a public platform to show what six months of experimentation has produced.

But the real career-making opportunity comes afterward. The three highest-performing residents will receive three-month internships at Tiffany & Co.’s New York headquarters from June to August 2027. For an emerging designer in the UAE, access to one of the world’s most established jewelry houses offers something difficult to replicate through workshops alone, which is an opportunity to see how ideas move from a sketch or material experiment into an industry operating at a global scale.

Plenty of luxury brands have entered the region through stores, activations, dinners, and campaigns, but far fewer create opportunities that could meaningfully affect what the region produces next. By pairing education in Abu Dhabi with a professional pathway into Tiffany & Co., the residency puts some of that global luxury infrastructure directly within reach of designers based here.

It also fits into DCAD’s larger ambition to establish Abu Dhabi as a destination for design rather than simply a market for it. The commission describes the partnership as part of its effort to build long-term creative infrastructure in the emirate through education, international collaboration, and professional opportunities.

Calling All Jewelry Designers! Tiffany & Co. Is Launching a Design Residency in Abu Dhabi

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Calling All Jewelry Designers! Tiffany & Co. Is Launching a Design Residency in Abu Dhabi

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