Immersive Innovation: Bridging Digital Design and Virtual Realities in Jewellery.

The paper presents the results of the workshop "Utopia: Jewelry Beyond the Body," held at the School of Design of the Politecnico di Milano as part of the Master degree program with the aim to develop an innovative design methodology for future creatives. The workshop's main objective was to explore the process of designing a virtual jewelry collection conceived to be worn and experienced in the digital world. The paper describes the workshop's deifferent stages of the methodology, with a specific focus on the use of Artificial Intelligence for the ideation phase, and the creation of a virtual exhibition hosted on Spatial.io, in the final stage.First, the paper addresses the context of the workshop. The jewelry and fashion fields have undergone a profound transformation, with a gradual shift from tangible, physical interactions to the dematerialized domain of the virtual. The pervasive integration of digital technology has affected the entire value chain of these sectors, from design practices to distribution consumptions. Considering this change, the work highlights the need to explore digital manifestations of tangible products and experiment with spaces of digital co-creation. Then the contribution focuses on the methodology implemented in the workshop, integrating digital technologies, such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence.Finally, the document presents the experience's outputs with quantitative and qualitative results. The results provide insights into the effectiveness of the design methodology, highlighting the impact of the research conducted. Furthermore, the experience is evaluated with a focus on the possibilities that can be obtained merging jewellery design and virtual exhibition practices.The "Utopia: Jewelry Beyond the Body" workshop represents an initiative between jewelry design, digital innovation, and academic pedagogy. By describing the workshop's evolving context, methodology, and results, this article contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between digital technology, design creativity, and the evolution of the jewelry industry.