February 2012 Archives

For spring 2012 Louis Vuitton(previously mentioned) has a new collection of haute joaillerie designed by Lorenz Baumier(previously mentioned): Escale à Paris (a stop in Paris).  Not all the pieces are announced yet, but eventually there will be 7 famous landmarks of Paris represented.  For the first three we have the Champs Elysees, the Tuilleries garden and the Place de la Concord (really the fountain at the center).

For the Champs Elysees we have a matching necklace and ring, both in white gold set with diamonds and red spinels, a red stone so close to ruby that many famous "rubies" are actually found to be spinel with proper testing. According to the press release, the necklace represents 1650 hours of work.

Addendum
I had noticed the small Arc de Triomph at the neckline, which I thought was a cute little detail, but it wasn't until I thought about it a bit that i realized that it really represents the Champs Elysee as seen from the river. The spinels on the right are the brake lights, and the diamonds on the right are the headlights of the constant traffic one sees there, any time of day or night. The loop of the necklace around the neck is the massive rotary which surrounds the Arc.

For the Tuilleries gardens we have 2 pieces in an Art Deco vein, a pair of earrings and a ring, both in white gold set with emeralds and chrysoprase. The earrings have an interesting book-matched symmetry to them, reminding me of a piece in Chanel's 2011 collection.

Finally for the Place de la Concorde, we have a overwhelming ring depicting the fountain at the middle of the circle. Unusually the press-release includes 2 pictures of it, which give a good feel for just how closely matched to the original it is. It is also of white gold, set with small diamonds and sapphires for the lower tiers, and a large sapphire on top. The support-structure is a piece of carved onyx, a clever way to "darken" the interior.

And completely unrelated collection, also from LV, was also announced, Defile (translates probably to parade). The pictured piece is the "Charm" bracelet, version XXL, in multiple colors of gold and diamond. It is only available as a custom order in gold and lapis lazulie, gold and malachite or the pictured gold and diamond. Price ranges from 50,000-60,000 Euro.

All of these pieces, one assumes, will be available at Louis Vuitton's soon-to-open jewelry boutique in Place Vendome

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Another Jules Verne, by which they really mean 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, themed piece from Louis Moinet.  This one is a single-button chronograph, a hacked 7750*, with a button-mode indicator patterened after a ship's telegraph.  The casework isn't exceptional, but not bad, with a gold-on-black patten repeated on the bezel, controls and dial.  The dial has a nice swirling guilloche pattern (reminding me of Guinel's jewelry), but the harmony is broken by the inexplicable inclusion of the date in the middle of the open space, not centered in any way, between 5 and 8 o'clock.  The hands look to be off-the-shelf steel, a pitty as the chronograph hands do a good job echoing the blue of the outer chapter ring.


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* "Movement is the Swiss automatic mono-pusher Louis Moinet caliber LM30, exclusive to the firm, with 27 jewels, 28,800 vph and a power reserve of 48 hours. " Ahh, PR speak for "we hired someone to modify a 7750 and nobody else can call it a LM30"

Unlike the usual eponymous color, the Turquoise of Turkmenistan is a deep, almost alge-like, green color. A new collection by Parisian jeweler Lydia Courteille, "Amazonia" takes full advantage of the unusual color and texture of the stone.

First a pair of flower rings with the turquoise embellished with green garnets, chrysoberyl and diamonds set in 18kt gold

Two Flowers,	One Flower

My favorite of the rings is this nameless under-sea themed piece (yes I know that hasn't been the "in" motif for several years), also using green garnet and diamonds, with the addition of ruby eyes

The collection also includes a matching trio of bracelet, necklace and earrings with the same arboreal pieces over large slabs of variegated stone.

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From a Brazilian ad for bleach:



The caption is "Don't let bacteria have descendents in your home"
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His spot-paintings are apparently a catalyst for mockery. Previously he was out-spotted in  Parisian graffiti, now the Village Voice posits that all that remains is the obituary


I don't think the work of Gary Andrew Clarke was meant as a parody of the Spot paintings, but I like to think of it as such.  He's reworked famous paintings by all the big names of Europe as large-colored dots, as the "Vermeer" shown here



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Wallace Chan will be the first Asian jeweler to display his work at the Paris Biennale des Antiquares this coming September 2012. He's not new to the industry, though, having won the Hong-Kong Jewelry Design Grand Award for his 1987 invention, the Wallace Cut. This is basically an intaglio cut on the reverse side of a faceted stone which is carefully calculated to appear "complete" only when seen through the facets.

In the early part of this century he caught the Titanium trend(see previous), and presented a collection in 2007 as Baselworld

He's recently pre-presented several of pieces to the press:

A pair of elegant, if somewhat severe, earrings in diamond and rock-crystal (a traditional European material that he seems to use somewhat often)	"Innocent Heart" ring. The center stone is a 25ct star-ruby, and it is surrounded by smaller star-rubies and yellow-green diamonds

A Butterfly broach in titanium set with precious and semiprecious stones. The wings are verigated rock-crystal

Necklace of aquamarine, sapphires, amethyst and diamonds set in titanium. The settings of the aquamarine deserve special note, they are titanium shells, anodized to match the color of the stones nearly exactly and set with tiny diamonds, giving them the appearance of just sticking to the outside of the large stone unsupported.

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