Results matching “jewelry”

The watch industry, like any large industry, has it's own internal awards. These include the the Aguille d'Or(golden hand), given at the annual Grand Prix de l'Horlogerie de Genève, a "for us, by us" type of award, like the Oscars.  Also given are "press" awards by the various magazines, more like the Golden Globes, including the Watch of the Year, given by Montres Passion, the TimeZone Watch of the Year and even the Couture Design Awards, given by a Jewelry industry publication, has a watch category.

So there are plenty of awards for watches, for the best, the newest, the most complex or the most blinged-out watch, but there are no awards for the worst, the most derivative or the least inspired attempt to get a bite of the apple. There is no watch industry analogue to the Golden Raspberry or the Bulwar-Lytton Award for bad fiction. Since we're nearing the end of the 2012 watch model year, by October we'll start hearing pre-release "buzz" for the 2013 Baselworld and SIHH releases, I present my picks for the 2012 Watch Industry Razzies (I was going to come up with some sort of bad acronym to spell out WRIST, but that will have to wait). Note that these are my opinions only and only reflect the high-end of the watch industry.

Words, Names and Press Releases
First, in the realm of letters, we have 3 awards, two for Press-Release rediculousness and one for a product name.

Worst PR Text, Florid Prose Division

Roger Dubuis for the PR for their new Venturer - "For ever walking on a tightrope, always off the beaten path, the boundaries of normality have no meaning in his life. The world of the Venturer is marked by danger and challenge. Adrenalin is his fuel, action is his engine, intelligence and alertness are his protection. This is the world that permeates the new Pulsion Collection from the Genevan watchmaker ROGER DUBUIS. These are timepieces made in his own image: naturally powerful, and effortlessly controlled." (source)

Worst PR Text, Absurdly Overdone Metaphor Division

Stefan Kudoke for his Kudoke White Flower - "Flowers are in need of warmth and light. Therefore it has been planted behind two translucent sapphire glasses like in a greenhouse. The body heat of the wearer warms the sensitive plants.....Due to years of research Stefan Kudoke succeeded in cultivating a flower species that is able to cope without any water. That is why the case is protected against water. The flowers vigor is fertilized by a Swiss automatic winding movement delicately refined in Kudoke manner. " (source)

Worst Acronymic Hash

Christopher Claret - "X-TREM" (source)

X for Experimental
T for Time
R for Research
E for Engineering
M for Mechanism

Watches and Movements
Now onto the technical awards, from cases to watches and onto things kinda like watches, but not really.

Bling!

Piaget for their Emperador Tourbillon Coussin and a case-back pavee set with diamonds (source)

Smallest change to make a new model

Girard Perragaux for their Laureto 3-bridges Tourbillon. They changed replaced clear sapphire bridges with pale blue Spinel ones.

Press Pic (source)	Side by side (source). Since it's nearly impossibly to tell, the one on the right is the old one, with clear bridges. The one on the left has the new blue bridges.

Most I love the 90s

IWC and their weird fixation on Top Gun (source)

As an aside, why is there a "Spitfire Perpetual Calendar" model in the Top Gun Collection?

Middle-finger to the collectors

Beat Haldimann H9. It has neither hour nor minute hand, nor any indication to record the current or the elapsed time. It doesn't even show the beat of the, what one assumes is a, fantastically made and finished movement within. (source)

Special Raspberry of the year, 2012

This year, the Raspberry of the Year goes to the entire industry as an award for pandering, specifically the the Year of the Dragon special editions. Several of these are actually quite fantastic, for example Piaget's sculptural dragon or Jaquet Droz's playful one, but the overall effect of nearly every watch brand (excluding Patek Philippe and Rolex, bien sur) having one, some as minimally "special" as just to have a different engraving, is overwhelmingly mercenary.
(all brand names link to the image source)

Piaget	Grieb & Benzinger	AP	Cartier
Angular Momentum	Parmigiani	Vulcain	IWC 7-day dragon rotor
Kudoke	Jaquet Droz	Chopard	Paul Picot
Tissot

(All the images are from the manufacturer except the AP Dragon, from PuristsPro user Allen and several images by PuristsPro user Z3, the Piaget caseback, the Parmigiani Dragon and the GP Tourbillon comparison)

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Titanium bracelets this time from the prolific Lorenz Baumier (mentioned frequently before). Apparently he likes the beach, or likes it enough to put together this little, consisting of only three pieces, surf-themed collection of bangles.

Mediterranee, bluish anodized Titanium with a white-gold and diamond decoration	Ocean, in dark purplish blue anodized Titanium set with diamonds in white gold

Sable(sand or beach), golden anodized Titanium set with sapphires and black diamonds in rose and white gold

Prices range from 16 300 € to 22 200 €

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As acts of veneration, Hindu temples frequently adorn their idols with gold jewelry. For obvious reasons, it is extremely rare for these sorts of pieces to make it to the market, but Bonhams is currently selling a 28-piece private collection of 17th-19th Century pieces.

Gold Pendents	Gold Kevacham. The word kevacham (kavacham) means armor, and refers to decorative armor worn by the god or goddess.
Wrought silver necklace	Gold braid in the form of a snake. " On festive occasions, women in South India sometimes wear long linked ornaments (jadai nagam) over the lengths of their braids depicting cobras symbolizing fertility and sexuality"*

A closeup of the snake-braid

The finest piece of the collection, at least from photos in the press-release, is a large gold necklace

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• source of the quote

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Since it's the diamond-jubilee year of Queen Elizabeth, some of the jewelry brands, particularly those with some, no matter how tangental, connection are putting out themed collections. To be fair, we've seen much sillier reasons for a themed collections!

The first pieces were all designed by Wendy Yue for Annoushka, all are 18kt white gold and set with diamonds, rubies, garnets and sapphires. The collection ranges in price from 11,000£ to 16500£.

Serpent Ring	Lizard Ring
Lion Ring. The coral-colored part of the crown is, in fact, cut and polished coral.

From Stephen Webster (previously mentioned) and Garrard comes a more obviously-connected collection. Garrard, apart from being the oldest jewelry house in the world, has a long-standing connection with the House of Windsor, including being the maker of most of the currently used crowns. There are 12 items in the Diamond Jubilee collection, each including the eponymous birthstone. June has an additional pearl in the orb set atop the crown.

January pendent, set with Garnet	September pendent set with blue sapphire

From Theo Fennell comes a collection of rather bland, if nice, pieces. I think the rings, particularly the white-gold one, are nicer then either the earrings or the necklace.

Yellow gold and amethyst } White gold and blue sapphire
Chandelier Earrings, set with rubies and pearls	Necklace set with a large, heart-shaped briolette-cut amethyst.

Finally a collection from Solange Azagury-Partridge(previously mentioned), the Regalia. It's an interesing melding of a couple of traditional elements, the ribbon from the "Order of the Garter" (the highest current order of chivalry) done in guilloche enamel and surrounded with rose-cut diamonds(an antique, low-facet-count cut rarely seen since the early 20th century). In the context of enameling, guilloche refers to the engine-work done under the surface of translucent enamel. It was perfected by, and most commonly seen, Fabergé's workshops.

Regalia Ring in white gold and blue enamel, set with brilliant-cut diamonds	Cushion ring, white-gold and blue enamel set with a large cushion-cut diamond, with brilliant-cut diamonds as accent
Regalia earrings, in the usual white gold, blue enamel and diamond

A second part of this collection has a series of "titled" rings, all in enamel, gold and diamonds. The Duchess is my favorite, with the deep purple-blue and the central rose-cut stone.

Countess	Duchess
Princess

There are a few other brands with Jubilee-themed pieces, Backes & Strauss (the oldest diamond house still in business), Georg Jensen and even the rejuvinated East India Company(previously mentioned), but they'll have to wait

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In the middle of May, Sotheby's auctioned off 60 lots, part of a collection of jewelry by Suzanne Belperron (1900-1983). This is one of the largest collections of her designs in private hands. She worked continuously from 1930 until about 1970, a rare female designer in a predominantly male business, selling to all the usual celebrities of the day, from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to Colette, Jean Cocteau and Gary Cooper.

Rock-crystal ring set with a diamond in a thin gold chaton	Rock-crystal broach set with small brilliant-cut diamonds
Yellow-gold ring set with an emerald-cut diamond. This was her personal engagement ring, made in 1923	Platinum broach in the form of a branch, set with diamonds and both cut and cabuchoned sapphires.

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Paris has a new boutique in the heart of the jewelry quarter (the area around Place Vendome and Blvd. St Honere) with the opening of Maison Auclert on Rue de Castiglione Before opening his store Marc Auclert, the son of an antique dealer, worked in the jewelry department of Chanel (previously mentioned) and Sotheby's, and for DeBeers in Japan.

His speciality is something about which I have quite mixed feelings, incorporating antique, and sometimes ancient, elements into modern jewelry. The outcome is surprisingly good, considering the technique, but some of the original material deserved better then to be raw material for a Place Vendome jeweler. That said, here are the pieces, in no particular order. Unless specifically mentioned, assume that the modern work is in 18kt yellow gold.

Oh and a personal note to Auclert, or their PR firm: Thanks for the actual pictures of the actual pieces, so much better the the CGI that is sometimes used

Cufflinks Set with neolithic carved carnelian beads	Pendents The decorative elements are gold plaques that originally decorated Chinese perfume flasks, dating from the 10th-13th century. They are set on silver-blackened leather with platinum fittings
Bracelet The 18kt gold bangle is set with a pair of Menuki in the form of tigers. They were made by Teiji Goto (1603-1671).	Necklace The chain is modern, but the pendent is a 1st Century CE gold roman spoon with a handle in the form of a goose (duck?). I can find no information if the bending of the spoon is modern or not.
Earrings The artifacts are a pair of Menuki from the 17th century representing male and female dragons. They are from the Mino school of the 17th Century.	Necklace The pendent is a pair of deer Menuki made in the workshop of Nagagawa Isho at the beginning of the 19th C.
Pendent The main piece is a “cameo” done in Berlin Iron, circa 1805-1810. Berlin Iron was a side-effect of the Napoleonic wars, women would donate their gold to the Prussian state to fund the war and receive an iron piece in return. The dangles are polished ruby crystals.	Ring Set with both a 1st C. BCE Roman carnelian intaglio and its impression, this piece is probably one of my favorites for the way it uses the original piece.

If you have to ask, the prices range from 9,000-45,000 Euro.

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Peter Lippmann is a Paris-based photographer who was born in the US.  He's done quite a wide range of still-lives, from food to fashion to jewelry, and has had a long standing relationship with the Cartier Art magazine.  Magazine No. 14 features a photoshoot "Seduction", pairing the Cartier pieces with Alligators. It starts with a pair of gold and precious stone Alligators, which together form a necklace, that were commissioned by the early 20th century Mexican actress Maria Felix (previously referenced).  



The La Dona watch in 18kt gold is featured in the next two.  This model was inspired by Mrs. Felix, hence the connection with the initial pieces in the shoot.





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