A new face of amber - Lidia Popiel

On 5^th October this year at Warsaw Jewellery & Watch Fair Gold Silver Time the Mayor of Gdansk Pawel Adamowicz nominated Lidia Popiel to be the Ambassador of Amber.

The project “Ambassador of Amber” aims at a promotion of amber and amber jewellery. Every two years the Mayor of Gdansk shall nominate famous people from the world of fashion, culture, business or politics whose task will be to wear jewellery with amber, inform about its unique qualities and aspects connected with it. The first nomination was given to Lidia Popiel, a well-known photographer who has had connections with a world of fashion for many years and has her column about fashion in “Fifth Avenue”.
During a special meeting with the journalists the Mayor of Gdansk Pawel Adamowicz and a Mayor’s plenipotentiary for amber Robert Pytlos provided information about the details of the “Ambassador of Amber” project and about previous activities concerning The Development Strategy for Gdansk up to 2015. The project constitutes a part of this strategy. “There are many stereotypes on amber which we would like to overcome, showing a good design of amber jewellery. We wish to introduce amber into society. That is why we invited Lidia Popiel to cooperate with us, also hoping that she will provide some hints.” – said Mayor Adamowicz.

The „Ambassador of Amber” program is one of the elements of the Development Strategy for Gdansk up to 2015, and one of the strategic aims is the enhancement of the role of Gdansk as the World Capital of Amber. The previous year’s activities related to reaching this aim are: setting up the Museum of Amber and the World Council of Amber, signing Gdansk Declaration on good amber practices on the initiative of the municipal authorities. This year the most important is signing by a Mayor Adamowicz a regulation as of 7.07.2007 dealing with the terms and conditions of the lease of commune lands for the purpose of recognition and output of amber deposits – the first one for 35 years. A crucial role is also played by a cluster project called Amber Delta, created together with the Institute for Market Economics. They also plan to create in the nearest future an inter-faculties jewellery workshop at the Gdansk Academy of Fine Arts under the direction of Dr. Slawomir Fijalkowski, a well-known designer and a lecturer of the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz.