Bvlgari turtle by Francesco Vezzoli is on display at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
@Bvlgari
Fusion between high jewellery and contemporary art, Bvlgari and the Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli have come together to create a precious sculpture, a brass-shelled tortoise set with precious stones, titled Tortue de Soirée.
The polished tortoise shell, beautifully rendered, is studded with tumbles of amethysts and cabochon-cut rubellite, peridot, citrine, and topaz (43 gems for about 1,500 carats in total), paired with nine ancient Greek silver coins.
Following the inspiration of Lucia Silvestri, Bvlgari’s Creative Director, Bulgari’s artisans passionately worked for 530 hours to set the stones and coins, turning the carapace into a jeweled masterpiece.
“Bvlgari is a brand deeply rooted in the past and deeply projected into the future. When I have approached them, I could have never hoped such a participation, such an enthusiasm in creating a project that has never been made before,” said Francesco Vezzoli.
“For me this sculpture is a case of public jewellery. It is an extremely precious object but it’s not made for private consumption. It is made for public consumption. So this is for me very interesting and I would like to say that it’s probably the first time in the history of art that something like that has happened,” added Vezzoli.
“The work combines Vezzoli’s exuberant imagination and Bvlgari’s creative talent, and it was made possible thanks to the Département du Patrimoine (heritage department) of Bvlgari. This project showcases the commitment of the brand to support creative talent, as well as cultural heritage,” wrote vogue.fr.
Discover La Tortue de Soirée at Musée d’Orsay, until 1st March 2020. The Bvlgari turtle is part of Musée d’Orsay’s exhibition ‘Joris-Karl Huysmans Art Critic. From Degas to Grünewald’.
Sometimes all you need is a splash of color! CHOPARD WATERLILY Entirely crafted in ethical 18-carat white gold, this Chopard Waterlily Watch showcases some 43 carats of diamonds set in a floral design composed of jewelled lace petals. More than ever, Chopard celebrates the sacred nature of time by crowning it with … Read more
Ladies’ Complication: Here is a watchmaking tribute to the immense incandescent and vibrant orb. Maison Chaumet introduces a Flying Tourbillon watch (price: 283’500 CHF) in white gold inspired by the sun’s blazing motion and changing hues. In its permanent orbit, this ever-radiant miniature sun rises and sets, passing through midday to midnight. An … Read more
The new Les Ciels de Chaumet High Jewellery collection by Chaumet tells a four-part story about the multiple metamorphoses of the sky.
Ever since the nineteenth century, Chaumet Maison has created jewellery inspired by the heavens and illuminating the beauty of women. Tiaras, headpieces, brooches, devants de corsage, necklaces and pendant earrings bear witness to this creative passion, rich in observation, invention and symbolic force.
Les Ciels de Chaumet High Jewellery reinterprets with virtuosity stars, shining suns, crescent moons and planets; @chaumet.com
While in Monaco for the inauguration of our exhibition Chaumet in Majesty, Chaumet’s latest High Jewellery collection Les Ciels de Chaumet was presented inside the prestigious Princess Grace Suite, with the gleaming Mediterranean as a backdrop.
“Our gala dinner celebrating the exhibition opening was held inside the Casino de Monte-Carlo, a staple of Monaco nightlife. Inside the breathtaking Salle Médecin, our guests discovered first-hand our High Jewellery collections with the skies of Chaumet as the backdrop”
A poetic and vivid theme par excellence, the new Les Ciels de Chaumet collection pays tribute to the dialogue that the Maison has carried on with the arts since it was founded in 1780. From the twirling suns of Van Gogh, through the flocks of wading birds on Japanese prints, to the swirling skies of Turner, the sky has always inspired the most beautiful creations. Following the lead of the great masters, Chaumet Maison reinterprets with virtuosity stars, shining suns, crescent moons and planets, as well as the graceful multitude of birds who inhabit the skies. This is a celebration in four chapters of firmament femininity.
Chaumet Lueurs d’Orage necklace; @chaumet.com
Lueurs d’Orage
In the stormy sky, the sun’s rays shine through the clouds and endow the landscape with a unique colouring for a fleeting instant. Inspired by a changing sky swept by the wind, the Lueurs d’Orage necklace combines the colours of sapphires, amethysts, tanzanites and an exceptional imperial topaz. Like a burst of celestial light, this spectacular 37.68-carat gem can be detached from the necklace to be worn on a shorter chain or clipped to a diamond necklace. After the storm, the clouds take on an aureate glow that reveals the luminosity of golden yellow sapphires from Sri Lanka. With harmonious soft curves and steely rays, the Nuages d’Or creations are graphic jewels with great lightness.
Chaumet Les Ciels de Chaumet 2019 – COLLIER SOLEIL DE FEU; @chaumet.comChaumet Les Ciels de Chaumet 2019 ; @chaumet.com
The burning sun, star of the day or wrapped in nocturnal hues…
Les Couleurs du Ciel are variations on the multiple facets of the king of stars. While a solar and sovereign femininity radiates from the Soleil Glorieux creations, Soleil de Feu re-creates the intensity of the sun at its zenith. An image of the last highlights of the setting sun on the shadowy water of the coming night, the shades of spinels from Tanzania and Vietnam, ranging from blue to red, through green and yellow, compose a parure shaded with the tones of rare colours. A 6.29-carat chrysoberyl in absinthe green accents the spectacular bracelet, which is fully articulated, in a sumptuous display of the Maison’s virtuosity.
Les Fulgurances du Ciel – Chaumet Les Ciels de Chaumet 2019 ; @chaumet.com
Les Fulgurances du Ciel pay tribute to the essence of High Jewellery, to the art of highlighting gemstones that make women glow on festive evenings.
A motif that has been present for over two hundred years in the Maison’s creations, the star is adorned with the purity of diamonds. The dancing undulation of a starry cascade, the perfect positioning of stars on a tiara and the luminous caress of these earrings illustrate the mastery of a Maison that is faithful to its tradition of excellence. Like comets streaking across the sky, emphasizing its immensity with their luminous glow, the Passages jewels reinterpret these fascinating heavenly bodies with extraordinary black opals from Australia. In their wake, trails of pastel tourmalines add a finishing touch to a virtuoso creation and reveal the queen of the night with their brilliance.
Les Habitants du Ciel – Chaumet Les Ciels de Chaumet 2019 ; @chaumet.com
The airy grace
Dear to the naturalist vocabulary of the Maison, the exotic birds that fly through the sky incarnate an airy grace and take the imagination on a journey toward a horizon of symbols and poetry. Adorned with green tsavorite garnets that come, like migratory birds, from Africa, the swallows of the Envol jewellery add new enchantment to Chaumet’s celestial bestiary. Rare and mystical, the dancing waders of Parade lend their slender elegance to a delightful parure, a haiku of magical charm. Their ballet is enhanced with diamonds and pink and yellow sapphires. Paying tribute to a Japonism stemming from the Maison’s historic creativity, the Parade parure is a compendium of Chaumet virtuosity.
Chaumet Les Ciels de Chaumet; @chaumet.comChaumet Les Ciels de Chaumet; @chaumet.comChaumet Les Ciels de Chaumet; @chaumet.com
In line with 21st Century youth who are now demanding vegan leathers be used by luxury brands, we are now witnessing the emergence of a ‘sustainable’ high-end jewellery house on the famous Place Vendôme*, for whom anything mined is considered harmful to the environment and thereby unacceptable. Why buy gold from gold mines when you can recycle the gold from electronic waste such as graphics cards and computer processors? Why buy mined diamonds when real diamonds can now be grown in labs?
These questions form the fundamental principles of Courbet and is likely to have a Stella McCartney effect on the entire jewellery industry. Most of the big luxury houses have committed themselves to 100% use of ‘ethical’ gold as quickly as possible. This would imply fairminded and fairtraded gold as well as recycled gold. Overall, it is certainly better for the miners themselves but not for the planet. Is it more ethical to overcome poverty to the detriment of the planet or to save the planet first?
One would hope that alternatives will be found for the families dependant upon the mining industry. The natural diamond industry includes miners, traders, polishers, jewelery makers and retailers, all adding their own margins, while the man-made sector controls many if not all of those functions in single firms. Some 10 million people work in the diamond industry, in some of the poorest areas of the world. The diamond industry contributes $8 billion a year to Africa (1).
Courbet – Place Vendôme Fine Jewellery Maison; @en.courbet.comCourbet – Place Vendôme Fine Jewellery Maison ; @en.courbet.com
Growing Support for Lab-Grown Diamonds
How long will it take for jewellery customers to reject the beautiful rare stones produced by nature for the unique stones painstakingly produced in a lab? Lab-grown diamonds may now be marketed in the United States as real gemstones, as long as they “clearly and conspicuously convey that the product is not a mined stone”(2).
For most of the twentieth century, the diamond market was entirely controlled by one company: De Beers. Total control of the industry meant that De Beers set diamond prices. Once De Beers had control of global supply, it could keep prices stable by stockholding rough diamonds during a weak market and then releasing them once demand increased. This monopoly no longer exists, and today diamond prices are driven by supply and demand (3).
In the USA, several law suits were filed in U.S. courts alleging that De Beers “unlawfully monopolized the supply of diamonds, conspired to fix, raise, and control diamond prices.” In the early 2000s the company changed strategies by licensing the De Beers brand name to the LVMH luxury group in order to sell directly to consumers through “its own retail stores” and brand name rather than focusing on B2B rough diamond supply control.
De Beers has now abandoned its decades-old policy of refusing to sell lab-grown diamonds, and now grow them at its Element Six labs in Britain, sell them through jewellery subsidiary Lightbox, and market them as “sparkly, pink, blue or white fashion accessories that are neither as rare nor precious as real gems” (4). The risk for the 130-year-old De Beers, which coined the marketing tag “A Diamond is Forever” in 1947, is that its branding of lab-grown gems could undermine natural diamonds.
As such, “De Beers targets younger consumers with its lab diamonds, sold under the Lightbox name for about $800 a carat”, claimed Bloomberg (5). “That’s a fifth of the price of existing man-made stones and one-tenth of the cost of buying a similar natural (mined) gem. The lab-grown industry has filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, accusing De Beers of price dumping and predatory pricing. While De Beers has said it isn’t trying to disrupt existing lab-diamond producers, who have a small, but growing, share of the market, the company has a history of using price as a weapon”.
“Still, it’s not all about price”, says Bloomberg. “Man-made diamonds have positioned themselves as an ethical alternative to natural stones, which have long been associated with conflicts in Africa and the massive environmental footprint of modern mining. Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in 2006 blockbuster ‘Blood Diamond,’ is a backer of San Francisco-based Diamond Foundry, one of the most famous synthetic brands.” De Beers says it simply saw a demand for lab-grown diamonds and now technology is sophisticated enough to produce gem quality as well as industrial stones, and decided to fill it. In so doing, they have also legitimised the man-made category.
Courbet is also breaking the mould by being based at the Place Vendôme where Paris showcases many the world’s leading high jewellery brands but Courbet does not have a retail presence. Clients are invited to make an appointment to visit its showroom-style loft space just above some of the most expensive, private and secretive jewellers such as JAR. The big difference is that Courbet is digitally driven and accessible to the world. The brand says it is following a DNVB ‘Digitally Native Vertical Brand’ strategy of cutting out all middlemen to sell directly online. It is also an Omni-channel strategy however, that aims to attract customers to its showroom, pop-ups, corners in department stores and the like.
Courbet – Place Vendôme Fine Jewellery Maison ; @en.courbet.com
Growing Diamonds and Carbon Footprints
The extent to which online businesses create a carbon footprint of their own is still a subject of much debate. However, due to the colossal number of data centres that are needed to fuel planet earth’s internet obsession, the online world is now also beginning to damage the real world (6). Amazon recently announced its Shipment Zero goal under which the company aims to have 50 percent of all deliveries reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030. No doubt Amazon will resort to aviation biofuels, electric vehicles, recycled packaging and the like. A digital jewellery business will never leave such a large footprint, of course, but Courbet will be forced to monitor its total eco-system as it drives explosive growth across borders.
A bigger issue that lab-grown diamond businesses will be facing in the future will be that of total transparency regarding energy used to produce those diamonds. A recent report from JCK ‘The Industry Authority’ (7) questioning ‘just how eco-friendly’ these diamonds are is difficult to substantiate, if not impossible. Perhaps for this reason, the more circumspect lab-grown companies tend to use word sustainable.” “Man-made diamonds are unusual for a “sustainable” product as they are produced in factories”, it states,” The machines that produce diamonds “require constant energy, 24/7, running huge microwave-heat generators.”
“For now”, JCK reports, “saying a diamond is lab-grown is like saying it has a Kimberley Process certificate. It tells you some info, but not all. Even if lab-growns are more eco-friendly than mined, that’s an arguably inappropriate label to put on an item produced with large amounts of non-renewable energy. If a cookie contains 30 percent less sugar, that doesn’t make it a health food …. but is hopeful that the lab-grown boom will boost transparency in the diamond sector, as jewellers realize that many customers really do care about these things”.
“Most HPHT diamonds are produced in China, which sources 55 percent of its power from coal and 20 percent from hydro”, states the JCK report. “In India, another major producer, 75 percent of grid power comes from coal and 10 percent from hydro. Singapore, home of IIA, uses little renewable energy.” For reasons of transparency, Courbet will be obliged to own or collaborate with the most eco-friendly labs and aim to be able to at least claim “certified carbon-neutral” which is done by a full third-party audit.
Courbet – Place Vendôme Fine Jewellery Maison ; @en.courbet.com
Growing Brand Awareness
Since its humble beginnings in 2018, Courbet can proudly claim to have generated more than ‘600 articles in tier-one publications such as The New York Times, Forbes and Les Echos as well as a handful of interviews on major television shows’. As a result, it has been the department stores themselves that have invited Courbet to be present in their stores, often right opposite Cartier!
The fact that the brand is digital and specialises in lab-grown diamonds does not mean that it should be compared to Swarovski or worse still, Pandora! In fact, its most affordable lines could be more realistically compared to Tiffany’s and then upwards. The three key product categories catered for are Bridal Rings, Brand Coded Collections and Unique pieces, some may include the world’s biggest lab-grown diamonds commanding prices greater that 500,000 Euros!
“The collections revolve around themes of the universe and the planets that are dear to the brand”, says Courbet, “Fluid lines, strong statements of modern luxury, elongated and sparkling”. “The Courbet name was inspired by Place Vendôme itself,” say the co-founders, Marie-Ann Wachtmeister and Manuel Mallen. They “desired an artistic connotation and selected Gustave Courbet, the French rebel painter of nature and women, world-famous for his painting L’Origine du Monde. What’s more, Courbet once dismantled the Napoleonic pillar at the center of Place Vendôme as a testament to his desire for world peace and change”.
“We are signaling the coming of a new age on the Place Vendôme,” Manuel Mallen, co-founder of Courbet, said in an interview to The New York Times (8). “It is not by accident that we chose this name. The jewellery houses on the Place Vendôme know that their products have damaged the environment in one way or another,” Mr. Mallen said. “The time has come for change.”
This very interesting venture, a totally 21st Century brand with a 19th Century name is certainly one worth tracking. One cannot help wondering how the name will be pronounced by Americans, Japanese or the Chinese and how easy it will be to remember compared to the digital brands such as, Uber, Bolt or even the new jewellery start-up called 404 Place Vendôme which is not really at the Place and does not wish to be ‘disruptive’ or ‘to speak to Millenials’ but are totally aimed at them, offering personalised jewellery within 15 days from its fake virtual address named after the error code, « 404 not found ».
We remain convinced that many brands may wish to copy the Courbet concept as quickly as possible. To copy its values and principles is relatively easy. To offer a different creative direction is also easily achievable. Competing with the numerous technical patents that Courbet have, will, however, be a much harder challenge. Courbet are aiming to keep raising the bar and setting the new standards for the world. How long before they are acquired by Richemont, LVMH, Kering or Fosun?
@CourbetCourbet – Place Vendôme Fine Jewellery Maison ; @en.courbet.comCourbet – Place Vendôme Fine Jewellery Maison ; @en.courbet.comCourbet – Place Vendôme Fine Jewellery Maison ; @en.courbet.comCourbet – Place Vendôme Fine Jewellery Maison ; @en.courbet.comCourbet – Place Vendôme Fine Jewellery Maison ; @en.courbet.comCourbet – Place Vendôme Fine Jewellery Maison ; @en.courbet.comCourbet – Place Vendôme Fine Jewellery Maison ; @en.courbet.com
Head to Harrods‘ Fine Jewellery Room to witness the High Jewellery spectacle While haute couture was gracing the Paris runways, the city also played host to the unveiling of the annual haute joaillerie collections – an opulent showcase of the rarest jewels, flawless craftsmanship and most elaborate designs. With some pieces taking years … Read more
