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Item Of Interest: Stepping Into The World Of Fine Jewellery

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Watches & Jewellery

Item Of Interest: Stepping Into The World Of Fine Jewellery

In this fortnightly column, we take a keen interest in things, celebrating the moods and whims that fuel desire. In this edition: accessible, gateway fine jewellery designs.

by Gordon Ng  /   February 15, 2022
fine jewellery

Taking a closer look at the art of fine jewellery. Credit: Chanel

In an age of high-speed everything, I’m getting quite afraid of losing my love for the slow. Or maybe it’s the opposite, and things speeding up are making the slow appreciable.

Whatever it is, this worry came to a head recently when I was looking up old videos of jazz standards. I ended up watching a clip of the Dave Brubeck Quartet playing Take Five live in Belgium from 1964 (transcendent! Also very good as a soundtrack for choosing accessories with a jaunty spirit).

READ MORE: 5 Things To Know About ‘The 55.55 Necklace’ From Chanel

It was wonderful and transporting and all, but just three minutes in I could feel twangs of impatience setting in. There’s a worrying thought: what else have I gotten used to speeding through?

Certainly television shows, which I often put on double speed to save time. Not to get all smell-the-flowers… but what about all the other things that make life delightful? What about aesthetic pleasures?

fine jewellery
Credit:Dior

Fashion houses have been slowly but steadily getting in on the jewellery game. This, for example, is Le Montaigne, a cushion-cut yellow diamond weighing a whopping 88.88 carats that was recently acquired by Dior. Right now, it’s on display at the house’s 30 Avenue Montaigne boutique, but will soon be mounted on a custom design by artistic director of jewellery Victoire de Castellane.

I think, maybe, that’s why I’ve started nurturing an interest in jewellery (and watches, its close and equally fascinating compatriot – but that’s for another day). There’s an expectation from something like fashion to constantly renew and reinvent.

READ MORE: Jameel Mohammed’s Fine Jewellery Debut Deserves Your Attention

We measure trends from the past in DECADES, but somehow expect newness twice a year or more with seasonal, pre-seasonal and one-off collections. Luxury fashion houses are adopting streetwear drop methods to keep things moving on the shelves.

The importance of highly merchandised capsule and collaboration collections often dwarf the more conceptually-driven main season collections. It can be a bit confusing trying to make sense of what to pay attention to.

READ MORE: A Close-Up Of Bvlgari’s Divas’ Dream

But I want to talk about jewellery, and the loveliness of its positively glacial pace. I was reminded of this when I checked out the upcoming Van Cleef & Arpels’ A Journey Through The Poetry of Time exhibition. (It runs from February 12 to 20 at Marina Bay Sands, open to the public strictly by appointment.)

There’s a dazzling array of “poetic complication” timepieces – like the hands of a watch modelled as lovers meeting on a bridge, a fluttering butterfly complication that feeds off wound kinetic energy, and ballet-inspired musical watches that tinkle while enamelled disks of dancers slide across the face.

Credit:Van Cleef & Arpels

The august Parisian jewellers Van Cleef & Arpels have a dazzling exhibition that runs from February 12 to 20. Some of the most captivating creations on show are archival pieces specially flown in from the house’s Paris patrimony. Wonders include secret watches from decades past, glorious pieces of jewellery with teeny, tiny covert watch faces hidden in a variety of ways.

Of course, there’s also a whole lot of high jewellery creations. These are the kinds of things a friend aptly described as “where precious stones are a material for creating a piece of art, as opposed to wearable jewellery”. They’re wearable, often in six to seven different modular ways (highly ornate necklaces break apart into chokers, brooches, watches, bracelets, et cetera).

READ MORE: Gucci’s High Jewellery Collection Is A Maximalist’s Dream Come True

But what’s really enriching is taking a slower, closer look and appreciating the tiny, detailed work involved. The way diamonds are arranged and set to encourage different plays of light. Or the precise selection of exactly the right precious stones for colour, clarity and brilliance to match a certain design.

It’s all very mind-boggling and can inspire a number of responses: a nervous system-level sympathetic response of accelerated heart rate at the sight of fine, artisanal beauty; acquisitional material bloodlust; or my least favourite, a passing enjoyment of simply looking at nice things.

READ MORE: Bvlgari Looks To Its Roman Legacy For Its Newly Revamped Boutique At MBS

If you’d asked me a scant few years ago what I knew or cared of jewellery, I would have heartily scoffed and quoted Carrie Bradshaw: “I like my money right where I can see it: hanging in my closet.” Now I understand she was wrong – it’s also nice to see it on your neck, fingers and wrists.

But even if high jewellery, like haute couture, is a fantastical world away, there is always fine jewellery to start with. Please join me in my ravenous survey of the options.


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Item Of Interest: Stepping Into The World Of Fine Jewellery
Love white gold single earring with diamonds, $2,710, Cartier
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Cartier’s Love is easily one of the most recognisable famous lines around. Launches in the ’70s and designed by Aldo Cipullo, the screwed-in bracelet design was perhaps a committed response to the time’s free love movement. For a more subtle, less recognisable effect, I’m very into this single earring which comes with diamonds.

Cartier
Pave Butterfly white gold small stud earrings with diamonds, $1,900, Graff
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Roughly speaking, Graff is to diamonds what Loro Piana is to cashmere. By virtue of that kind of specialty, Graff creations can tend to run a little on the higher end. The delicate, flirty butterfly designs of these is a great starting point.

Graff
B.zero1 rose gold pendant necklace with cermet, $2,780, Bulgari
image

Bulgari’s Colosseum-inspired B.zero1 collection is one of its most iconic. I love it for its tubogas design – a flexible metalwork feature that the brand first pioneered to make its sinuous Serpenti watches more movable. In the B.zero1 pieces, especially on rings, this means the centre sections are squeezable and satisfyingly squishy – a nice tactile element. This one’s a pretty modern update, with the centre portions crafted out of cermet, a blend of ceramic and metal.

Bulgari
Perlee Couleurs yellow gold pendant necklace with malachite, $2,770, Van Cleef & Arpels
image

Van Cleef & Arpels is one of those august French jewellery houses that evokes the glamour and illustriousness of the Place Vendome in Paris. I’m particularly into their Perlee collection – which though launched in 2008, actually picks up on a gold bead technique that dates all the way back to the 1920s.

Van Cleef & Arpels
Coco Crush beige gold mini ring, $2,100, Chanel
image

Chanel’s Coco Crush line of jewellery has a very straightforward concept: take the quilted design from its handbags and apply it to fine jewellery. What’s really nice is that the brand has an exclusive alloy called beige gold, the colour of which is a little less pink than rose gold and a little more subtle than yellow gold.

Chanel
Tiffany Knot yellow gold ring, $1,600, Tiffany & Co.
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Tiffany & Co. is a jewellery house that conjures up some really romantic images of old New York – Tiffany lamps, Audrey Hepburn munching on a croissant and gazing longingly at a boutique’s display window, etc. The latest and most exciting launch from the brand is Knot, a whole collection inspired by the wire chain fences found all around New York City – an urban motif made delicate and elegant.

Tiffany & Co.
Bee My Love rose gold pendant necklace, $2,910, Chaumet
image

Chaumet has quite a history, having been the official jewellers to Empress Josephine of France back in the day. Nature is a tricky inspiration to manage artistically, but the house has managed to create this Bee My Love line by distilling it down to simple, hexagonal shapes that reference honeycombs. Each facet is mirror polished, so the pieces play very alluringly with light.

Chaumet
Rose des Vents rose gold bracelet with diamond and onyx, $2,650, Dior
image

Christian Dior’s many personal quirks continue to be an inspiration. His superstition, for example, inspired jewellery artistic director Victoire de Castellane to design the Rose des Vents line. The eight-point star motif is meant as a reference to Dior’s own lucky star and meteorological wind roses. Like a lot of the creations in the range, this bracelet comes with a diamond-set coloured stone – onyx in this case – that can be flipped over for a simpler, more subtle face.

Dior
Pretty Woman pink gold single earring with diamond, $1,350, Fred
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The jewellery house Fred tends to take a more lighthearted approach to things. Its newly opened boutique in Marina Bay Sands, for example, is inspired by sunlight and sea, and features romantic frescoes inspired by Jean Cocteau. Pretty Woman is one of its key collections, renamed in 1991 after Julia Roberts wore a necklace from the line in the film of the same name. It’s hard to make heart-shaped motifs look not twee, but this open-work design with a subtle diamond set into it hits the mark.

Fred
Ronde rose gold ring, $1,750, Hermes
image

In 1938, Robert Dumas – a member of the Hermes family – was inspired by boats moored in Normandy. The chains on the anchors inspired the Chaine d’Ancre line that has become one of the French house’s most emblematic. In this fine jewellery design, the chain is distilled to its simplest, most singular element and wrought in lovely rose gold.

Hermes
White gold earrings with Akoya cultured pearls and diamonds, $2,420, Mikimoto
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Mikimoto is perhaps the last word in fine, precious cultured pearls. You could go all mademoiselle with strings of them, but I like to imagine starting with little accents. These Akoya pearl-topped earrings are a dainty example, the bow portions set with diamonds.

Mikimoto
Sophie Bille Brahe Botticelli Rose yellow gold earrings with rose pearls, US$1,580 (S$2,125), www.net-a-porter.com
image

When Copenhagen jewellery designer Sophie Bille Brahe launched her brand in 2011, it was quickly picked up on by fashion industry insiders. Her gentle, elegantly avant-garde style offered neat twists on classic jewellery codes. These earrings, for example, treat pearls with a more carefree attitude, with clusters of rose pearls arranged in an almost organic manner.

Net-a-Porter
Possession pendant necklace with diamond and turquoise bead, $3,000, Piaget
image

There’s something quite magical and talismanic about jewellery, especially heirloom pieces. I love that quality, which I really found in Piaget’s Possession necklaces. There’s an almost mystical look to them – this one’s a turquoise bead wrapped with a gold ring that allows it to move freely, with a diamond subtly set into the chain.

Piaget
Nemara rose gold pendant necklace with diamonds, $1,780, State Property
image

If you’re looking to support local, State Property’s great to start with. The brand was founded by a jeweller and an industrial designer, and they niftily work lofty concepts into very wearable designs. This necklace, for one, is part of a collection inspired by the Byzantine empire, its round and sculptural shape a nod to the domes of Byzantine architecture.

State Property
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MCI (P) 047/10/2021. Published by SPH Media Limited, Co. Regn. No. 202120748H. Copyright © 2022 SPH Media Limited. All rights reserved.