Results tagged “jewelry”

Ornella Iannuzzi is a French-born and educated, but London-based jeweler. Though her website is painful to use, her actual work is quite lovely, working from naturalistic forms, but more geological then floral, and the occasional Art Nouveau curl.

Her newest collection is called Lucy in Wonderland and is based around the recently-discovered Wello Opal from Ethiopia.

First three pairs of earrings, the first two with a honey-theme to the design.

A Drop of Tej 6ct of opal set into 18kt gold with diamond accents	Sweet Honey 11ct of opal set in 18kt gold.
Holy Water 5.5ct of opal set in 18kt gold with diamonds for accents

Also in the collection are some rings, including these three "Coral" pieces

Wello Coral rings. Top ring is in black rhodium plated silver with a diamond on top and a Wello opal sphere, price from £1,100. Left ring is in vermeil with blue silver with a diamond on top and a Wello opal sphere, Price from £1,550. Right ring is in yellow gold with a diamond on top and a Wello opal sphere, price from £2,500.

And my far-and-away favorite piece, this Axum ring. The massive 18kt gold body, styled into possibly the rays of the sun, but strongly reminiscent of some ancient Egyptian designs, encloses a 7ct hand-carved opal

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Ever wanted Damien Hirst's For the Love of God, but cheap and tacky and devoid of even the passing interest of controversy? Franck Montialoux has got you covered with these vaguely-skull-like pieces cast in silver, some even set with real semi-precious stones!

Napoleon ring, with "real" sapphires for the eyes, 625€	Edmond Dantés ring in silver and blackened silver, 440€
Marie Antoinette necklace set with semi-precious stones and fresh-water pearls, 625€	Sitting Bull necklace, set with garnets and semi-precious stones, 685€

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Well I'm sure I've seen worse...
In celebration of the 80th birthday of Mickey Mouse Disney has teamed-up with Chopard to release a series of jewelry and watches.  The Watches are of the usual "happy sport" style, but with a little black-and-white diamond mickey head instead of the fish. It is interesting to see them working with Chopard and not Bulgari since Disney and Gerald Genta had a long relationship for Mickey (and occasionally Goofy) themed watches.

Specs:
The Happy Mickey pendant, in white, rose and yellow
gold set with black, white, yellow and pink diamonds, rubies, onyx
cabochons eyes, with one mobile diamond; on a white gold chain set with
blue and pink sapphires, emeralds, rubies and amethysts. Retail will be £132,00

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Starting on December 13th, Christies will be auctioning off Elizabeth Taylor's collection of jewelry with proceeds to benefit her AIDS charity ETAF. The preview show has started and is making its way around the world before coming to rest for the sale in New York which means that photos of the pieces have started trickling out. I'll start with just the previewed necklaces.

First a pair of shots of an emerald and diamond necklace by Bulgari originally given to Taylor by Richard Burton

REUTERS/Fred Prouser	AP Photo/Richard Drew

More Necklaces

Sapphire and diamond necklace by Mouaward with matching earrings AP Photo/Misha Japaridze	A gold and ivory necklace which was a gift from the estate of Edith Head. The Ivory disks are 19th and 18th century opera passes. AP Photo/Richard Drew
One of a suite of Kunzite, amethyst and diamond "Triphanes" jewelry by Van Cleef & Arpels. It is estimated at $70,000 - $100,000. AP Photo/Richard Drew	"The Taj Mahal Diamond," (c. 1627), on a gold and ruby chain by Cartier, was a gift from Richard Burton for her 40th birthday in 1972. The central diamond is engraved with the words "Love is Everlasting" in Parsee. It is estimated at $300,000 - $500,000. AP Photo/Richard Drew
A ruby, diamond and pearl necklace by Cartier with the La Peregrina 60-carat natural pearl pendant The necklace is expected to bring $3 million at auction. REUTERS/Fred Prouser	The so-called "Grandmother's Necklace", with matching earrings, by Van Cleef and Arpels in front of a Warhol "Liz Taylor" screen-print (not owned by Ms Taylor). The necklace and earring set were a present from Richard Burton to commemorate the birth of Taylor's first grandchild. AP Photo/Misha Japaridze

(source note that that page is a nightmare of ads and javascript pain, and the second image in the slideshow is Hank Williams Jr.)
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A new collection from De Grisogono was announced today (apparently they do their press releases on Sunday) with just a few pieces, all fruit.  I don't usually like his work (see previous examples), but these aren't awful.  They're well rendered, not overly gaudy and taught me a new French word: Pastèques means watermelon, the first pair of pieces.

Watermelon

Watermelon Earrings - White gold set with red and black sapphires, emeralds and peridots. As he's always so proud of being one of the first jewelers to use black diamonds, I'm surprised Fawaz Gruosi didn't use them here.	Watermelon pendent, of the same materials

Melon

Melon Earrings - Tzavorite and Peridot set in yellow gold form the melon. The flower scar at the bottom of each is a single yellow sapphire, a nice little touch	Melon Necklace - same materials as the earrings

Orange

Orange Pendent - cabochon orange sapphires represent the segments and faceted ones are the skin. The white pinth is done in diamonds	Orange ring - same materials

(Photos by Monique Bernaz, source )

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While in New York a few weeks back I wandered through what has become the high-end jewelry district, Madison Ave from 55-75.  I spotted these two pieces in the windows of DeGrisogono, a brand as famous these days for managing to not go bankrupt as anything else.  Both are dolphin-motif bracelets, but I know very little else about them

Dolphin cuff - Sapphire animal set on a wide shagreen (tanned and polished stingray-skin) cuff	Hinged Dolphin Bangle - pink sapphires(?) and diamonds set on yellow gold with cabochon sapphires for eyes

The images are mine

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Earlier this month Boucheron presented their newest collection, Dolce Riviera, at their main Paris boutique, in the Place Vendome.  The collection is intended to reflect the sweetness of the French Riviera, and each of the families is named for one of the famous beaches on the Mediterranean coast: Isola Bella, Capriccioli, Beau Rivage, Paraggi and Aiguebelle. As with so many of the Haut Joaillerie collections, there's always a theme and it usually has only a tangential connection to the actual design

Bracelet from the Capriccioli family, set with cabuchoned emeralds as well as faceted sapphires and diamonds. The bracelet centers on a large cabuchoned sapphire	Aiguebelle ring, centered on a large (black?) opal and surrounded with blue and purple sapphires and emeralds.
A ring from the Isola Bella collection, several colors of sapphires set into yellow gold. This one is very reminiscent of the colors in several of the Cirque du Soliel necklaces they released in late 2009	One of a strange pair of seemingly renaissance-inspired earrings named Paraggi. It is cultured pearls, turquoise and coral (don't try to bring those outside the EU!) set in 18k Rose gold

By far my favorite pieces from the collection are these two unstructured necklaces.

First is the Isola Bella necklace from which the right side can be detached to make a shorter necklace and a matching bracelet. The press release doesn't give materials, but I would guess that at least the pink stones, and possibly the green as well, are tourmaline and the yellows are sapphires to match the ring (above) in the same family	My favorite piece is the Beau Rivage necklace. Centering on a emerald cabochon, it is 18k white gold set with blue sapphire beads and faceted diamonds. Like the Isola Bella piece and most of the other necklaces, this one is convertable, with the set emerald removable to wear as a broach

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This is just a sample of the collection, each of the families has a bracelet, necklace, ring, pair of earrings and some add in a watch. There are plenty more pictures over at The Jewelry Editor, as well as a short video from the opening party in Paris.

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Chanel has tried to cram a great deal of symobolism and story into their current jewelry collection. It is called "Contrasts" but has as a secondarytheme Orpheus in the Underworld, and I've not been able to figure out quite how the two are connected. On the other hand, some of the pieces are quite lovely, and are using some stones rarely seen in jewelry these days, including moonstone and rock crystal. The Jewelry Editor has a little video of her visit to the announcement party in Paris last week.

North Star Broach: white gold set with a 2ct brilliant cut central diamond1.5ct of pear-shaped, 4.5 ct of baguette and 399 tiny brilliant cut diamonds. Most of the large flat areas are set with moonstone, there's 43ct spread across the 6 stones and 10 white opals for the ends of the petals. 7 Pearls round out the piece.	Perle de Risée ring: The press release lists diamonds, black and gray spinel and moonstone for this piece along with pearls, but I can't actually identify most of those stones. It's always possible the caption ended up with the wrong picture
Crystal Rain Bracelet: Rock Crystal and diamonds. Both this piece and the matching necklace use Rock Crystl, a material that pretty much disappeared from jewelry by the beginning of the 20th century to represent water. Not my taste, but an interesting choice	Crystal Rain necklace
Perle de Rosée earrings. I believe this is the picture that should go with the caption from the Perle de Risée ring, diamonds, black and gray spinel and moonstone for this piece along with pearls. In any case these earrings and the matching necklace (I'm still tracking down a picture for that) are my favorite pieces of the collection.	Autumn Sun cuff bracelet in white and yelloe 18kt gold. The main stones are white and yellow diamonds of 3ct each.

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Not straying far from their recent haut joaillerie lines, Dior has released another collection, in collaboration with Victoire de Castellane, of flower-themed jewels. Entitled "Ball of Roses", it has contains 12 pieces, all with rose designs.

May Ball Necklace	Romantic Ball Ring
Venetian Ball Ring	Summer Ball Ring
Garden Party Ring	Vintage Party
Blue Night Ring	Parisian Ball Ring

Note that there are exhaustive lists of materials on Paris Joaillerie, the source of the pictures, but I didn't bother to transcribe them.


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From Feb 18th until July 4th (sorry, you've probably missed it)the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (the NYC branch of the Smithsonian Institute) has had a large exhibit of jewelry by Van Cleef and Arpels (previously mentioned) entitled Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels. As I've tried once before, this will be a review of the exhibition which I was able to attend last weekend.

First of all, the collected works are fantastic, from the coronation jewels of Princess Grace through the many pieces commissioned by the Duchess of Wales to their current works, a massive cross-section of VC&A's work was on display, probably more then in any one place before. The exhibit itself was separated into 6 areas, each with a theme, a more sensible way to organize the jewels then by date or by material. The themes were somewhat vague to cover all the pieces, but useful conceptually: Inovation, Transformation, Nature, Exoticism, Fashion and Personalities (a catch-all for pieces owned by famous customers). These tied into various associated displays, including a video of the mystery setting in the innovation room, pre-production sketches in the Transformation room and photos of celebrities in the Personalities room. The entire exhibit was labeled by number, everyone got a guide book on entering which provided all relevant information, a much better solution then what would have been an excessive number of captions for the displays.

The display of the jewels was not all that satisfactory. The pieces were mostly set as a long row on a table, which made for moderately good traffic flow, but the cases were problematic. Some were single cases with the all the pieces, but most were smaller domes with a few pieces. These, for some baffling reason, appeared to be blown glass and were rife with irregularities that distorted the view of the pieces. The guards were also very insistent that one could not lean or even place the guide on the tables, which made getting a close look an excise in careful balance. The occasional nose-print testified to failures. There were also some baffling displays, like the illusionary ones based on parabolic mirrors that caused the piece to appear to float at the table surface, but also dimmed and distorted it due to the poor condition of the mirrors. As has become common with this sort of exhibit, photography was prohibited.

I don't wish these complaints to give the impression that I didn't enjoy it a great deal, it would have been worth the trip by itself, but such small changes could have made it much more enjoyable.

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ps yes it is pathetic how overrun by spammers the website is, it looks like no care was taken to secure it at all, nor has anyone from the museum bothered to look at it since it was launched.