What defines something as precious? For some people, it’s a clutch of coloured stones, each rare and exquisite in themselves, combined to make the most dazzling piece of fine jewellery. The Incas venerated gold – great shiny hoards of which they would accumulate and worship. A small child might see things otherwise: what could be more precious than a comfort blanket, well-worn over the years but considered more dear with every passing day?

For The Art of Fashion’s second jewellery special, I wanted to take that theme of the precious and explore it from many points of view. For the artists working with jewellery houses to create new work, there is value in the beauty of the hand-crafted. The Paris-based Elie Top makes jewellery that has a talismanic quality – combining astrological signs, mystical themes and mechanical innovation to shield the wearer in an armour of good vibes. Judy Blame, the fashion stylist, jewellery designer and artist who died earlier this year, created treasures from the ephemera of the everyday – bottle tops, safety pins and discarded bits of plastic featured often in his work. The pieces are materially inexpensive, but his work, especially since his death, is now invested with another value altogether – that of being priceless.

Pieces from a Cactus de Cartier collection

Pieces from a Cactus de Cartier collection

And then there are the heirloom pieces, the sparklers and gemstones that simply dazzle with their beauty. The issue closes with a look at the celebrities who have fallen under the spell of certain jewellers, first as friends, and then as clients. As our pal Gollum would remind us in The Lord of the Rings, sometimes precious means that you just have to get your hands on it.

Jo Ellison, Fashion Editor, FT

‘Adele Bloch-Bauer I’ by Gustav Klimt ©Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty

A sunray made solid, no other substance compares to our favourite heavy metal, says Simon Schama

A mask of hammered gold from Chichen Itza in Yucatan has its toothy mouth open but its eyes shut. The closed lids are engraved with stubby crosses: the glyph in the native tongue of Nahuatl for teocuilatl or “excrement of the gods” which is what the Mixtecs and later the Aztecs called their gold. That says it all, really. Dug from the bowels of the earth (often by miners believing that the first humans emerged from caves) the intensity of its light-absorbing radiance transmutes an earthy ore into the emanation of the sun. Early south American goldsmithing, four millennia ago, reinforced this elemental transformation since it was mostly achieved by hammering raw nuggets into fine sheets, at once softly beatable yet still a sunray made metallic.

An unparalleled wonder, in fact, so that, from one end of the world to the other, gold has been associated with immortality since, unlike silver (associated with the moon), it never tarnishes or corrodes. It’s this resistance to corruption which has allowed gold treasure to survive from remote antiquity, and, when cleaned, to shine out with blinding lustre. So we have astonishing beaten crowns, ear flares and nose ornaments from the cultures flourishing in coastal Peru 4,000 years ago; the gold which covered the mysterious bronze masks of Sanxingdui in western Sichuan (in, but not of, ancient China which seems to have been relatively indifferent to gold); and the British Museum’s goat standing on its hind legs nibbling its favourite shrub.

Gold Mixtec mask and Tolima pendant (on show at Golden Kingdoms, Met, NYC) Photo courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art; ©Clark M Rodríguez

Gold Mixtec mask and Tolima pendant (on show at Golden Kingdoms, Met, NYC) Photo courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art; ©Clark M Rodríguez

Something about the dazzle lures archaeologists into swoons of wishful thinking. Leonard Woolley who excavated the sites of Ur and Uruk in the 1920s called the goat “ram in the thicket” as if it could be associated with the Biblical sacrifice of Isaac even though that scripture was written at least a millennium later. When Heinrich Schliemann found a mask of finely beaten gold in the midst of the staggering trove he uncovered at Mycenae, he convinced himself that he was looking at the death mask of Agamemnon.

Gold can be not only a deceiver but a fatal lure. When the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men were lodged by the Aztec king Moctezuma in the quarters of his predecessor, they broke through what appeared to have been a recently sealed doorway and found themselves in a storeroom piled high with golden jewels, sculptures, and sacred objects. Needless to say they made short work of the treasure, ripping the layers of gold from objects which to them had become worthless, and melting the metal into portable bars. But when at the end of June 1520, the Spanish and their Tlaxcalan allies decided to make a night exit from captivity in Moctezuma’s palace, their departure was weighed down by the swag. Ordinary soldiers for whom the gold would be the medium of elevation from peasant to grandee were described by Bernal Diaz (who was there) desperately tying the bars to their bodies with strips of cloth. Attempting a retreat along causeways, and fiercely attacked by the Aztecs, many of the gold-luggers drowned in the canals, gold still attached to their bodies. In 1982, one of those bars was found during an excavation of Alameda Central Park in Mexico City (modern Tenochtitlan) – which can be seen in New York’s Metropolitan Museum’s eye-popping exhibition of pre-Columbian art, Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas, until the end of the month.

‘Virgin and Child’ by Filippo Lippi, c1450 Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Parma, Italy/©VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty

‘Virgin and Child’ by Filippo Lippi, c1450 Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Parma, Italy/©VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty

But gold has also been represented as weightless, a misty, glowing medium in which sacred forms float as they take on physical presence. The first panel of a Marwar school triptych, painted in the early 19th century when the Raja was under the influence of the hatha yoga-practising Nath sect, is nothing but a ravishingly brushed patina of golden paint; a universal void out of which forms – human and natural – gradually resolve themselves as the rippling sea of gold washes about them. Centuries earlier a Byzantine mosaicist working for the Basilica of the Assumption on the island of Torcello in the lagoon in which Venice would arise, produced an immense bowl of gold in which the Virgin and child are suspended, upright, as if perfectly balanced on a sacred surfboard.

The coronation of Elizabeth I, 1559 ©Photo12/UIG via Getty

The coronation of Elizabeth I, 1559 ©Photo12/UIG via Getty

Christian iconography used precious gold for the halos of male and female saints alike, but in pagan mythology and its endlessly recycled imagery, golden effusions were the projections of male self-glorification especially when directed at female objects of desire. Ovid tells the story of King Acrisius of Argos, who when told by the oracle he would be killed by his grandson, locked up his daughter, Danaë. As usual this was no barrier to Zeus who entered Danaë’s cell and the maiden herself in the form of a shower of gold. In response to the more elaborate version of the story written by Boccaccio, the image of the virginal captive receiving the auric insemination which would produce the hero Perseus, inspired some of Europe’s most voluptuous paintings.

Titian painted a Danaë at least six times; the most sensual (at the Capodimonte Museum in Naples) has the velvety nude reclining as the golden cloud bursts above her like the jackpot from some divine fruit machine.

Rembrandt, who was besotted with the Venetian master, made his own gorgeous variation, which did away with cash flow, instead euphemising the gold as a flood of hot light pouring through a parted curtain and washing Danaë’s naked belly and face as she stretches out an arm of welcome to the penetration. The great masterpiece, in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is, however, now a glorious ruin since, in 1985, its erotic urgency pushed a crazed Lithuanian to attack it with both acid and knife.

Elizabeth Taylor in ‘Cleopatra’ ©20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

Elizabeth Taylor in ‘Cleopatra’ ©20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

Could these two golden atmospherics – the sacred and the sexual – ever be brought together? Gustav Klimt certainly thought so. In 1903 he beheld the Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna and the epiphany is usually invoked as firing his “golden” work, climaxing with The Kiss, exhibited in Vienna five years later. But like so many of his contemporaries Klimt had already been pulled into the golden stare by the championship of oriental ornament in the work of the art historian, curator and authority on carpets and textiles, Alois Riegl. Decoration, for Riegl, was in no way a lesser form of art. It could concentrate within it complex drama. So Klimt’s Judith, her mouth parted in post-decapitation excitement, registers the force of her sadomasochistic coupling of death and sex, by being mantled in an armour of gold tiles, hard metal laid over her voluptuously aroused body, the tight curls of her victim’s head brushing against her blushing breast.

Reproduction of gold-painted Shirley Eaton as Jill Masterson in ‘Goldfinger’ ‘Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style’\/©William Parker\/UK Press via Getty

Reproduction of gold-painted Shirley Eaton as Jill Masterson in ‘Goldfinger ‘Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style’/©William Parker/UK Press via Getty

Klimt’s women are no longer Danaës, their bodies opened in gratitude for divine impregnation. They have themselves becomes the sovereigns of realms of gold enfolding, embracing and engulfing both lover and beholder. The tiles and whorls of gold sheathing Adele Bloch-Bauer turn her costume into a throne from which all-seeing eyes look out with an authority more imperial than anything coming from the court of the Habsburgs.

And though in that kiss, the hunky male mantled in a tiled costume pulls his floral lover to him, it is her face (and her feet clenched in rapture) that are revealed to us while the picture translates the magnetism of their union into churning pulses of golden sensation. The couple dissolves into the kiss on the verge of a formless oceanic mist of gold which the Byzantine mosaicist and the Rajput painter alike would, I think, have recognised as the swimming radiance within which light generates the germ of life. 

One of Titian’s ‘Danaë’ Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte, Naples/©Bridgeman Images

Based on an ancient prayer book and 17 years in the making, Boghossian’s new bracelet is no ordinary piece of jewellery

‘It’s like painting with light,’ says 59-year-old Albert Boghossian, chief executive of his namesake family-owned (and now sixth-generation) jewellery company. The piece he holds is an exquisitely intricate cuff, more than an inch wide, covered in 442 tiny cabochon pearls and 2,042 white and rare coloured diamonds. Boghossian bends the cuff to show its surprising flexibility and the stones twinkle under the light. Like many of their creations, this is no ordinary piece of jewellery: the Boghossian Manuscript Coloured Diamond Bracelet represents a 17-year journey – 15 years to source the stones, and two to assemble it in Boghossian workshops around the globe.

“I started to buy these coloured diamonds with no clear idea in mind, I just knew I wanted to build something,” says Boghossian who works closely with the design team. “I was collecting smaller stones for their beauty and rarity in colour – they are of very fine hues, almost 80 per cent on the cuff are extremely rare. Then we fell across a collection of coloured diamonds good enough for us to create a truly special piece.”

Boghossian’s designers originally intended to create a necklace, but after the first few sketches there was a unanimous decision to use the stones for a bracelet. “We are inspired by many unusual things,” says Boghossian, “and one such things is miniatures. Our creative director Edmond Chin came across an old prayer book.”

A page from the prayer book on which Boghossian’s bracelet (above) is based

A page from the prayer book on which Boghossian’s bracelet (above) is based

The prayer book in question is a 15th-century German text, the Waldburg-Gebetbuch, housed in the Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart. “Edmond thought how can we bring this into the future with a modern interpretation? We started to assemble the coloured diamonds into tiny flower motifs.” Boghossian shows one of the original sketches. “The base of the bracelet is drawn as white diamonds. We used them like a mesh to carry the coloured stones, grouping it all together, searching for the perfect balance with the colours to create harmony.”

An image of the book shows colourful florals and twisted green vines interweaving on the page. “Those tiny tendrils of vine you see,” Boghossian points, “we reinterpreted them and recreated them with these diamonds. But what makes this bracelet special is the double layer.” Turning the cuff over he reveals an underside covered in white diamonds, an effect not dissimilar to seeing the underskirts of a couture gown. “The diamonds soften the touch to the hand,” Boghossian explains. “Because here we have this mesh and assemblage, we needed to weave diamonds underneath to make it soft. You can see barely any metal at all.”

Boghossian is renowned for innovating ways to set stones, being masters of the “inlay” where one stone is set into another and, now, “kissing”, where stones are held by a counterweight to give a metal-free setting. “We often have to wait for technology to catch up with us to create what we want,” says Boghossian.

The finished result includes pearls. “We thought the contrast between the coloured and white diamonds was not showing enough, so we disassembled the entire piece and used antique cabochon pearls. The pearls were a nightmare, incredibly difficult to set. It set us back another six months before we came to this final result. But we really just wanted to play with contrast, the shining of the cut stones and the matte of the pearls.”

The Boghossian Manuscript Coloured Diamond Bracelet will be auctioned at Christie’s in Hong Kong on the 29 May, with a guide price of £1.5m to £2.5m. The cuff is going on its own journey, being shown around Asia, before its sale. “At the end of the day I call it magic, that’s what it is all about, making magic,” says Boghossian as he places the cuff back in its velvet-lined box. FMJ

Elie Top

‘Vanity’ by the Pre-Raphaelite Frank Cadogan Cowper ©David Sims; Royal Academy of Arts, London, England, UK. (VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty)

‘Women need armour,’ says Elie Top. And where better to find it than in Arthurian legend? Jo Ellison meets the jeweller whose medieval obsession has found its moment

Elie Top

Elie Top

Elie Top, who founded his eponymous brand in 2015, makes beguiling pieces of jewellery that incorporate the mathematical precision of mechanical design with mystical elements of woo-woo. He uses birthstones, astrological symbolism and heraldry to make pieces that dazzle with ingenuity. His Pluton ring, set with 82 diamonds and spun on rotating rings, was inspired by celestial measuring tools; the onyx sphere in his Nicolo bracelet rotates under a bezel-set diamond to recall an astronomical clock.

‘Le Morte d’Arthur’; illustration by Aubrey Beardsley. Culture Club/Getty

‘Le Morte d’Arthur’; illustration by Aubrey Beardsley. Culture Club/Getty

This season, Top went further back in time, to conjure the legend and armour of King Arthur. “I wanted this collection to be more figurative,” he explains of the heraldic pendants and Lady of the Lake rings he debuted for spring. “Women need this armour. For their own protection.” Sure enough, the cuffs, rings and earrings have a powerfully spare design and a certain muscularity. But, as with all his pieces, these conceal more feminine features – the reverse of each is decorated with a tender filigree of flowers.

With his rakish smile and old-world panache Top cuts an extraordinary figure. Most often dressed in a slim-fit three-piece suit, usually heritage tweed, often accessorised with a bow tie or cravat, and always accented with his signature moustache, Top’s appearance has something of a time-lord about it. He might easily have slipped from any decade of the past century – as happy an habitué of the Roaring Twenties as he might be part of the louche bohemia of the 1970s.

Top’s sketch for the La Dame du Lac collection

Top’s sketch for the La Dame du Lac collection

The truth is far more prosaic. The 42-year-old designer grew up in the industrial landscapes of northern France, “in a very small village between Béthunes and Lille”. While he dreamt of occupying the splendid architecture of Versailles, his early landscape was that of heavy industry. “I hated it,” he says. “I just wanted to escape.” A collector of postage stamps, his first architectural inspirations came via the special edition stamps he found on envelopes. “I would sketch buildings made up of everything I knew about architecture – huge Baroque castles with a sense of an Italian city, and Bavarian turrets, and church windows.”

La Dame du Lac Blason cuff

La Dame du Lac Blason cuff

But today he’s happy to acknowledge the influence of the grim industrial landscape he despised as a child. “I think it helped me appreciate the more mechanical features of design. I am more impressed by the factories when I think about them – in that they made an impression on me. They remind me where I’m from.”

Loulou de la Falaise, ‘Untitled, from Family Album, January 1973’, by Andy Warhol ©2018 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc\/Licensed by DACS, London 2018, ©Bridgeman

Loulou de la Falaise, ‘Untitled, from Family Album, January 1973’, by Andy Warhol ©2018 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc/Licensed by DACS, London 2018, ©Bridgeman

Top’s career started in the 1990s, when he began working as an intern for Yves Saint Laurent, a place where he learnt to appreciate, first-hand, the kind of strong-minded independent women like Loulou de la Falaise, for whom he would later design. He left Yves Saint Laurent with Alber Elbaz to work with him at Lanvin and stayed there for 15 years before leaving to launch his own line.

“I started to think about it when I was 34,” he says of his decision to move to the more rarefied world of fine jewellery. “I wanted to be less connected to the fashion world. To do something less dependent on the season. It was also an opportunity to explore the world of the precious and something more personal.”

La Dame du Lac Stilet pendant

La Dame du Lac Stilet pendant

The Arthurian collection revels in his earliest childhood enthusiasms and his love of all things medieval. “I’ve always had an obsession with Baroque historical things.” He discovered the Arthurian block-prints of the English illustrator Aubrey Beardsley while reading the poetry of Oscar Wilde. His love for the Pre-Raphaelites, meanwhile, was sparked by the artworks he discovered on album covers for works by the French impressionist composers – Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel and Charles Koechlin – who came to fame in the early 20th century. Another teenage phase. “It was the time before the internet,” he says of the way certain images have been imprinted in his mind.

Joan Baez. Getty

Joan Baez. Getty

His references are still scattered with teenage ephemera: music and film have been a gateway to many of his favourite themes. John Boorman’s kitsch early 1980s classic Excalibur may not be the most obvious reference for such a seemingly worldly aesthete, but for Top it was an essential part of the Arthurian moodboard. He came to know its soundtrack decades before he watched the film (which he did after being prompted by Katrine, Boorman’s daughter who has a role in the film) and fell in love with the movie also. His obsession with Joan Baez started with his parent’s record collection. Listening to her more recently, he was struck by the “simplicity of the way she was singing” and the “way people were listening to her as though she was an apparition of the virgin. It reminded me of Elizabethan songs from the 16th century,” he continues. “And I suppose I find the purity of her voice an inspiration. It’s the same with heraldic symbolism in the medieval period, and the tapestries made by Jean Picart Le Doux in the 1940s. There’s no superfluity about them.”

13th century illumination

13th century illumination

In design, as in his deportment, Top’s references hop around the centuries. In his sketches, some of his muses have the same mournful disposition as Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix. “It’s funny,” he says when asked if he thinks of his muse as having that same Pre-Raphaelite air of melancholy. “I think of my woman as being quite timeless, but she is of today. I don’t really think of her as melancholy. I think of carefree women like De la Falaise. But there is a certain dreaminess about the sketches. In truth though, the women I like to surround myself with – the women I design for – are more wild. I like them to have a sense of freedom in the world.”

And why wouldn’t they be? Armed with his Bouclier ring or Blason cuff, she’s got the most stunning protection. 

Judy Blame photographed by Mark Mattock

Judy Blame photographed by Mark Mattock

An alchemist who created treasure from trash, Judy Blame’s legacy will live on, says Charlie Porter

‘Most of the things start off from a piece of jewellery that I’m mucking about with,” said Judy Blame, the fashion and cultural polymath who died in February aged 58. He was speaking to the Financial Times in April 2016, in his flat in north London, surrounded by the bits and bobs from which he made his life’s work.

Black string and pearls Judy Blame necklace. Isaac Murai-Rolfe/GQ style

Black string and pearls Judy Blame necklace. Isaac Murai-Rolfe/GQ style

Judy created much from the 1980s onward, from album covers (Massive Attack’s Blue Lines) and music video art direction (“Manchild” by Neneh Cherry) to fashion magazine spreads (he styled many of i-D’s most important shoots). But it was his jewellery that was at the heart of it all. This was jewellery unlike any other: no jewels, no precious metals. Instead it was made from safety pins, bottle tops, badges and random finds that most would see as rubbish. His work was sold at Dover Street Market and exhibited at the ICA. He also created jewellery for catwalk shows by designers including Comme des Garçons, Marc Jacobs and Kim Jones at Louis Vuitton.

Boy George in Judy Blame hat. Simon Fowler

Boy George in Judy Blame hat. Simon Fowler

Blame made little claim for his work during his life, making it hard to track the breadth and scale of his influence. He understood early on that fashion did not have to mean luxury. In the mid-1980s he was responsible for the look of Neneh Cherry, styling her in sportswear and brassy costume jewellery, and with whom he became a lifelong friend. With Boy George, he helped develop the Culture Club look with home-made badges and buttons: it was designed to be accessible and mimicked by fans.

So many designers have been inspired by his work, it’s safe to say that anyone using a safety pin for decoration or jewellery, is likely to have looked at Blame.

“Judy worked for decades with the infinite creative possibilities of the mundane yet talismanic safety pin,” says the artist Linder, who has included Blame’s jewellery in her group exhibition the House of Fame at Nottingham Contemporary. She first met Blame in 1977, when he had run away from home and was still known by his given name Chris Barnes. Punk was their fuel: at the time, Linder was creating her now iconic album artwork for the Buzzcocks using cut-up photographs, a practice she continues in her artwork to this day. “We were all working out our identities all the time.”

Linder talks of the alchemy in Blame’s work, in making something from seeming nothing. “One of the goals of alchemy is ‘chrysopoeia’,” she says, “the transformation of that which is base into that which is precious and revered. This is the essence of Judy’s practice. We both often worked with materials that were destined for the skip.”

Judy Blame for Moschino beret. Mark Mattock\/Styling Judy Blame

Judy Blame for Moschino beret. Mark Mattock/Styling Judy Blame

There was deadpan honesty in his work. “He always said he could make the cheapest bit of shit look really chic,” says Karlie Black, his studio assistant and right-hand woman, who worked alongside Blame for the last 10 years of his life. They were so close Karlie still sometimes talks of him in the present tense.

“He had a really bizarre way of working. A lot of it was emotive. The studio is a mass of the oddest materials. He’d just pick stuff off the street. Some things had been in bags for years, and he’d remember that something was there.”

As I write this, I’m sat with a large safety pin by Blame. I bought it from Dover Street Market not long after it opened in 2004 – Blame had an area under the stairs in the basement decorated with parcel tape. From the pin hangs a square of tweed, attached to which on both sides are various shapes of button, including one in the shape of a bird. There are diamanté chains hanging off the side, as well as a cross and a crushed champagne muselet. Hanging from the bottom of the tweed is a long toy skeleton with an angry face. Over its head is a charm in the shape of a crown. The work is typical of Blame, its materials are of no significant value, and yet it is one of the most precious things I own.

‘i-D’ shoot with Judy Blame necklace. Jean Baptiste Mondino

‘i-D’ shoot with Judy Blame necklace. Jean Baptiste Mondino

“There’s a connection to be made between Judy and a certain idea of piracy,” says Gregor Muir, now the Director of Collection, International Art at Tate, who gave Blame a retrospective show at the ICA in 2016 during his tenure there as executive director. “It was so clever for him to work in jewellery, because he’s turning crap into objects of desire. That was always his genius.”

Blame’s work questioned our perceptions of beauty, referring to overconsumption, environmental threat and the effect of a society ruled by wealth. “The other thing was his storytelling,” says Muir, “the way he related tales, that drama he gave to things by relaying them in a humorous way.”

Blame lived a life different from most in not just jewellery but also fashion. His aim was not to build a sustainable business. His interest was always the work itself, not any profit. “Hasn’t done me any good whatsoever,” Blame said when we spoke in 2016, “but I mean, you know, I’ve enjoyed it.”

‘i-D’ shoot featuring Judy Blame necklace. William Baker

‘i-D’ shoot featuring Judy Blame necklace. William Baker

Now that he has passed there is no business to exploit, but there is a legacy to be maintained. A trust has been set up. The studio and its contents will be preserved, both the finished pieces and his gathered materials. Shortly before he died, Blame worked with Michael Kopelman of Gimme Five to create some limited edition jewellery and T-shirts, setting a precedent for how his signature could be kept alive.

But really, Blame’s work is as much at home in a gallery as it is in retail. As well as the works in Linder’s show, Blame has recently been the subject of an exhibition at artist Jim Lambie’s SWG3 gallery in Glasgow. In Nottingham, Linder has displayed Blame’s work next to an 1840s locket from Chatsworth, where she has been artist-in-resident. “The eye isn’t phased by seeing Judy’s work amid 19th-century treasures,” says Linder. It’s more than punk, more than the sum of its disparate parts. “Judy’s finest work transcends time and space,” she says.

Delfina Delettrez

Alicia Vikander wearing Delfina Delettrez ring; Beyoncé wearing green Domino Dots ring (left hand) and Marry Me Double Eye ring; Giovanna Battaglia Engelbert wearing the Tree of Life headpiece, Capri, 2016; Catherine Deneuve wearing Skull and Snakes ring, with Delfina Delettrez; Tilda Swinton wears a version of Magic Triangle Piercing ring at the Berlin Film Festival. Raymond Hall/GC Images; James Devaney/GC Images; Photograph by Alex Bramall; Jacopo Raule/Getty

Delfina Delettrez

Delfina Delettrez’s roll-call of celebrity clients could be easily mistaken for the nominees for a Best Actress award. “Alicia Vikander, Tilda Swinton, Catherine Deneuve…” says the Rome-based jeweller, who founded her brand in 2007. The designer’s signature is a surrealist take on minimalism; earrings and cuffs encrusted with Dalí-esque eyes and lips.

Skull and Snakes ring

Skull and Snakes ring

Today, one of Delettrez’s most popular pieces is the “Dot” ring, a favourite of Beyoncé who owns “many variations” of it. The singer also purchased pieces from Delettrez’s “To Bee or Not To Bee” collection, where tiny bumblebees sit atop 18-karat gold honeycomb hive rings, or dangle delicately from pendant earrings. How very Queen B.

Delfina Delettrez Magic Triangle Piercing ring

Delfina Delettrez Magic Triangle Piercing ring

“Each of my customers has a sense of humour, just like the jewellery,” says Delettrez. “I love seeing how the women bring my designs to life and inject a new character into them.” She designed an elaborate “Tree of Life” headpiece for Giovanna Battaglia Engelbert’s wedding party. “I adore her and that piece,” says the creative director, “I need to wear it again.”

Often her celebrity clients are introduced to Delettrez when lending her jewels on a shoot. “I receive calls from the stylists asking if the client can buy the pieces,” she says. “But over time, many of them come directly to me to ask for advice about pieces for certain occasions or anniversaries. I think when a woman – even a celebrity – invests in the jewellery, she has a stronger connection to it. It becomes a personal heirloom, rather than an accessory to finish an outfit.”

Jessica McCormack

Ruth Wilson in Wing of Desire single earring; Emma Watson wearing Signature Button Back Hoops; Liv Tyler wearing Signature Button Back Hoops; Jennifer Connelly in Serif Diamond earring; Ruth Negga (left) in Hex Ruby Ring. David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images; David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Harper's Bazaar; Backgrid; David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Harper's Bazaar; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Jessica McCormack

‘The best picture I ever saw was a paparazzi shot of Rihanna, wearing her ‘Wing of Desire’ ear cuff, coming out of KFC with a bucket of fried chicken.” So says Jessica McCormack, the New-Zealand born, London-based jeweller, from her retail space in Mayfair’s Carlos Square. Rihanna was her first celebrity client, and the piece in question – an 18-karat gold ear clip encrusted with 2.41-carat diamonds that delicately curls up the cartilage, – costs £21,400. It was the first piece McCormack had ever designed; Rihanna bought it after her stylist saw one of McCormack’s business partners, Rachel Diamond, wearing it in New York. “Initially I was reluctant to sell it,” says McCormack. “But who says no to Rihanna?”

Rihanna the start of a glowing roster of clients. Liv Tyler is also a fan: the actress wears McCormack’s signature hoops whether she’s in a studio for an Elle cover shoot or working out in the gym.

“The women who wear our jewellery have personal style,” says McCormack. “They are bold, confident and smart” – much like the designer and her baubles, which offer a tongue-in-cheek and almost punkish take on fine jewellery: a pear-shaped diamond ring is titled “Wide at the Hips”; a rosary bead-like necklace, with a clip-on suspended diamond, is called “The Ball and Chain”. “I want people to be able to sleep, breathe, eat in my diamonds,” says McCormack. “Even in the chicken shop.”

Anita Ko

Safety Pin earring worn by Johnny Depp; Joan Smalls in Lip ring and custom-made earrings; Rosie Huntington-Whiteley wearing Short Cascade earrings with large diamonds; Cara Delevingne (left) with Double Loop earring and Double Chevron ring; Emilia Clarke; Safety Pin earring worn by Kendall Jenner. Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Disney; Venturelli/WireImage; Mike Coppola/VF18/Getty for VF; Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic; David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty; David M Benett/Dave Benett/Getty

Anita Ko

Anita Ko’s tale of her first famous client sounds like the makings of a Hollywood script. “Brad Pitt was working with the super stylist Rachel Zoe at the time. She was wearing some of my jewels, and Brad loved them,” says the designer who founded her brand in 2006. “He called and asked for a package to be sent, and from that he bought some beautiful pieces. He wears them in his everyday life.”

Safety Pin earring

Safety Pin earring

Ko’s Los Angeles base lends itself well to developing personal friendships with her clients. Having been introduced by initially by their stylists, Ko now counts Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Amber Heard and Charlize Theron as friends. Johnny Depp buys her earrings and ear cuffs – “specifically the safety pins, he just loaded up on some more,” she says. Although, she insists, the celebrity clients are really just the same as everyone else. “Like us, they want to buy pieces that look beautiful on them. They appreciate the time you spend with them to select the pieces they know they will wear often, if not everyday.”

Large Wing earring

Large Wing earring

And Ko is grateful to them, too. “Many celebs are being gifted high-end luxury pieces all the time, so I’m honoured they choose to buy my pieces,” she says. Why, does she think, she attracts such a dedicated legion of wearers? “They love the timeless factor, the cool factor. They love that I understand our lifestyle, being born and raised in LA.” To sum it up: “I think I offer the sparkle we all need in our lives.” How very Hollywood.

The Arrow earring

The Arrow earring

Shaun Leane

Macaw feather earcuffs made for Björk; Cara Delevingne in Vermeil Talon earrings; Aaron Taylor-Johnson with Messenger pendant; Saoirse Ronan wearing Hook earrings; black spinel and Tahitian pearl Thistle brooch being worn by Alexander McQueen and Sarah Jessica Parker at McQueen’s AngloMania exhibition at the Met. Gie Knaeps/Getty; ©GOL/Capital Pictures; George Pimentel/WireImage; Todd Williamson/Getty for Fox Searchlight; Sipa/Rex/Shutterstock

Shaun Leane

‘My work is as distinctive as it is disruptive and I find that people who connect with it have a similar ethos,” says the jeweller Shaun Leane of his clients who include Björk, FKA Twigs and Damien Hirst. “They are avant-garde and have a unique point of view.” Leane and his jewels are as artistic as his well-known wearers: the jeweller has been commissioned by the filmmaker and photographer Sam Taylor-Johnson and his works have been exhibited in the Met and Victoria & Albert. Lady Gaga is a client, and Elton John bought matching necklaces for himself and husband David Furnish. “My customers – especially from the art world – respect that I come from a classical jewellery background yet have created something new and innovative with that training,” he says.

His first high-profile buyer was Alexander McQueen for whom he made three platinum bands; one set with diamonds, one with sapphires and one with rubies. “They stacked together to represent the French flag to celebrate his role at Givenchy,” he says. Leane had a long relationship with the late designer, creating pieces for McQueen’s boundary-pushing catwalk shows. “My work takes on a different form and becomes more of a collectible than just an everyday piece of jewellery,” he says. Much like any work of art.

‘My work is as distinctive as it is disruptive and I find that people who connect with it have a similar ethos,” says the jeweller Shaun Leane of his clients who include Björk, FKA Twigs and Damien Hirst. “They are avant-garde and have a unique point of view.” Leane and his jewels are as artistic as his well-known wearers: the jeweller has been commissioned by the filmmaker and photographer Sam Taylor-Johnson and his works have been exhibited in the Met and Victoria & Albert. Lady Gaga is a client, and Elton John bought matching necklaces for himself and husband David Furnish. “My customers – especially from the art world – respect that I come from a classical jewellery background yet have created something new and innovative with that training,” he says.

His first high-profile buyer was Alexander McQueen for whom he made three platinum bands; one set with diamonds, one with sapphires and one with rubies. “They stacked together to represent the French flag to celebrate his role at Givenchy,” he says. Leane had a long relationship with the late designer, creating pieces for McQueen’s boundary-pushing catwalk shows. “My work takes on a different form and becomes more of a collectible than just an everyday piece of jewellery,” he says. Much like any work of art.

Sabine Getty

Celine Dion in rose gold pavé diamond set earrings; Rihanna wearing silver gold plated headpiece/necklace set with diamonds and a ruby; Charlotte Dellal with Sabine Getty who has on pink sapphire Circle necklace and pink sapphire Square ring. Melodie Jeng/Getty; Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty; David M Benett/Dave Benett/Getty for Fabletics

Sabine Getty

‘Celine Dion is so cool!’ Sabine Getty never anticipated her jewellery would be the starting point of a friendship with her “idol”. Getty, who founded her namesake brand in 2012, showed Dion pieces from her first collection, from which the singer bought earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings encrusted with diamonds and rubies. “Years later, I bumped into Celine at Paris Fashion Week,” says Getty. “As a wink, and knowing it would be huge for my brand, she changed outfits and wore all the jewellery she’d bought from me. ‘You see, I never forget,’ she said. That was pretty amazing of her.”

Yellow Sapphire Triangle earring, Sabine Getty BIG collection

Yellow Sapphire Triangle earring, Sabine Getty BIG collection

For Getty – who cast friends including the designer Charlotte Dellal and art dealer Monika Sprüth in her summer campaign – this sort of celebrity relationship is more important than red carpet dressing. “It’s relatable,” she says. “Red carpet jewellery can feel too unreal. Seeing someone famous wearing it on a normal day sends more accessible message.”

Pink Sapphire Circle earring, Sabine Getty BIG collection

Pink Sapphire Circle earring, Sabine Getty BIG collection

Getty, who believes her clients respond to her designs because they are “strong, successful women who are humble and have a sense of humour”, says: “In so many ways we’re all Tom Hanks in Big… adults learning to navigate the world.” Her latest range is inspired by a box of wooden toys. “I wanted the collection to be reflective our most innocent part – where our dreams and our creative forces come from.”

Fifty years on, Van Cleef & Arpels still captivates us with its clever little clover. By Vivienne Becker

You know it well; the lucky little four-leaf clover with the exotic name. Fifty years old this month yet forever young, the Alhambra has become one of the most recognised and best-loved signatures of Paris master jewellers Van Cleef & Arpels. Its sweet simplicity, pleasing symmetry and vivacious versatility – so different from the mega-gem magnificence of most historic Van Cleef creations – manages to reach across generations and above passing trends, renewing its youthful verve in each decade.

Van Cleef & Arpels Alhambra sautoir

Van Cleef & Arpels Alhambra sautoir

In fact, the Alhambra collection has enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years, a prime example of the vogue for reviving brand icons. Its 1970s-style mood of casual, easy, jewelled opulence is also very of the moment. Nicolas Bos, Van Cleef & Arpels’ chief executive, traces its current rise to the vintage trend that followed the minimalism of the 1990s. “Clients rediscovered their mother’s Alhambra jewels,” says Bos, “which suited the new generation, and the move towards more daytime jewellery.” Meanwhile, the late-1960s social and cultural revolution that formed the backdrop to the launch of Alhambra chimes with today’s radical millennial-fuelled changes.

It was a pendant in the house’s museum collection, in the quadrilobe-cloverleaf shape that is believed to have inspired the first Alhambra collection says Van Cleef & Arpels’ Heritage Director, Catherine Cariou. “We don’t know exactly what gave birth to Alhambra; there was just something in the air,” says Cariou.

The first jewel was a long sautoir – a gold chain scattered with motifs that echoed 1920s flapper necklaces and represented freedom to a new generation of working women who wanted to buy their own jewellery.

Van Cleef & Arpels has always marketed the clover-shaped Alhambra as a good luck charm; luck was a preoccupation – even obsession – of Jacques Arpels, who was fond of saying, “To be lucky, you have to believe in luck.” A scion of the family who joined the house in 1938, it was under Jacques’ direction that the Alhambra was launched in 1968.

It’s true that the invocation of good fortune is rooted in the earliest origins of the jewel, but there’s undoubtedly more to the global, cross-generational attraction of the Alhambra jewellery. Perhaps its enduring appeal lies in the fact that the quatrefoil is one of those archetypal, mystical forms – like the pyramid – that developed independently in different cultures and civilisations, to become embedded in our collective consciousness.

While a motif of Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance art and architecture, the quatrefoil originates, in earliest antiquity, probably in Mesopotamia, as a stylised vegetal motif. A symmetrical geometric arrangement of overlapping or interlaced circles, the curvaceous little four-lobed emblem was linked in Islamic and Moorish minds to exploration of the cosmos, and so to spiritual contemplation, as well as to the study of mathematics, science, astrology and astronomy. Entrenched in Arabian culture, it carried a powerful cosmic message out into the world, and it found its most sublime expression in the architectural wonders of the Alhambra, the Moorish 14th-century fortress city in Granada, Spain.

The Alhambra citadel in Granada. Allan Seiden, Legacy Archive/Getty

The Alhambra citadel in Granada. Allan Seiden, Legacy Archive/Getty

The jewel-like citadel and royal city, with its complex arrangement of halls, palaces and quadrangles, the Alhambra was conceived as a paradise on earth. Built by the ruling Nasrid dynasty, mostly through the 13th and 14th centuries, today it is considered the greatest artistic legacy of Moorish rule in Spain, just as Granada bears the imprint of its time as a great cultural centre, attracting scholars, writers, artists and intellectuals.

The quatrefoil appears in the intricate patterns of carved stucco work decorating doorways and arches, often ornamented with coloured ceramic inlays, the inspiration surely for the different inlays of coloured hardstones that are one of the defining features of Van Cleef’s extensive Alhambra collection.

For me, though, the most resonant of its cultural references is the connection, via Moorish architecture, to the Hippie-luxe movement of the 1970s. The name, the evocative shape, the coloured inlays and rich gold all conjure images of veiled, musky intrigue behind palace walls and intricate screens; the sense of adventure and hot-blooded romance that sent the new, wealthy jet-set to exotic lands; a time embodied by the unforgettable image of Talitha Getty on a Marrakesh rooftop.

Paul and Talitha Getty, Marrakesh, 1970. Patrick Lichfield/Conde Nast via Getty

Paul and Talitha Getty, Marrakesh, 1970. Patrick Lichfield/Conde Nast via Getty

The Alhambra pieces cleverly distilled that spirit of exoticism, together with freedom and a bold new femininity, into jewels that were at once light-hearted, fluid, flexible, accessible and affordable. Alhambra was seized on by stars and celebrities of the day, including Princess Grace of Monaco, the actress Romy Schneider and the French singer Françoise Hardy. The collection signalled a new approach to jewellery-wearing – free of formality and rules of preciousness, they could be mixed and matched to express individual style; sautoirs joined to make a belt or coiled into a choker.

Part of the new genre of “boutique” jewels introduced by Van Cleef & Arpels in the mid-1950s, an important part of this rule-breaking was the use of less-precious minerals and hardstones, so evocative of 1970s jet-set glamour, especially in arresting combinations of say coral and malachite or coral and deep blue lapis lazuli. The silhouette was traced in gold, beaded in Van Cleef & Arpels’ signature perlée technique, and then inlaid with a huge variety of different materials, colours and textures. The repertoire has evolved and multiplied over the decades to include everything from jet-black onyx, rust-coloured carnelian, jade green chrysoprase, rock crystal, exotic wood and pavé diamonds, to, more recently, textured pink gold.

Since the 1990s, use of the motif has been extended to rings and earrings, and since 2006, says Nicolas Bos, there have been variations on the theme: the Vintage Alhambra, a faithful recreation of the original; Magic Alhambra, juggling different sizes of the motif; Lucky Alhambra, mixing the motif with other favourite Van Cleef good luck symbols including stars and butterflies; Sweet Alhambra, miniature versions of these emblems; and Byzantine Alhambra, a polished gold openwork rendering of the silhouette.

Bos attributes much of Alhambra’s success to a reassuring sense of continuity, and “long-lasting value”. But he adds, “It’s important to continue to create around that continuity, to keep the jewellery alive, relevant.” And to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the iconic jewellery, Van Cleef & Arpels is launching special editions in new permutations of colour and material including grey mother-of-pearl in pink gold, diamonds in pink gold, onyx and diamonds in white gold.

One thing’s for certain, Alhambra has been a very lucky charm for Van Cleef. Many happy returns! 

Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the prettiest of them all? Flora Macdonald Johnston meets the jewellers creating riches from reflected glory

In recent months jewellery designers have turned the mirror on themselves as the face becomes the artist’s muse. Perhaps the interweaving lines of Maison Margiela’s minimalist profile cuff will hold your gaze? Those seeking designs of a more experimental nature may prefer the brushed yellow gold earrings from JW Anderson, or a Surrealist “portrait” ring – with ruby lips and bug-like peridot eyes – by Delfina Delettrez.

Some of the most covetable profile pieces on the market are by the Berlin-based jeweller Nina Kastens. Having launched her synonymous label in 2014, the designer has since had to expand and restock her cute and quirky “face collection” made from 18k gold and opal pearl. “Someone just told me that my face earrings look like they are blowing kisses. I guess we like this trend because everybody can see someone or something different,” says Kastens. “Museums are always a great source of inspiration for me and the paintings and sculptures of Picasso and Jean Arp.” However it’s not just art that is hidden within the interiors of museums that gives Kastens her creative flair: “This time I was inspired also by young artists from Instagram.”

Pablo Picasso’s Girl Before a Mirror (Boisgeloup, March 1932). New York, Museum of Modern Art ©Succession Picasso\/DACS, London 2018. On show in ‘Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy’ at Tate Modern, London, until 9 September

Pablo Picasso’s Girl Before a Mirror (Boisgeloup, March 1932). New York, Museum of Modern Art ©Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2018. On show in ‘Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy’ at Tate Modern, London, until 9 September

London-based Anissa Kermiche, who also makes a feature of faces, finds her ideas in the most unusual of places. Her gold Paniers Dorés earrings were inspired by a dinner table strewn with leftover fortune cookies. For her new collection she paired up with Korean-born, London-based fashion designer Rejina Pyo, known for her playful take on shape and volume, to help draw inspiration from sculptures by the likes of Alexander Calder. “Faces surround us everyday and yet we hardly ever register them,” says Kermiche of her Grande Tête-à-Tête earrings. “This particular face motif I designed after seeing a sculpture in the window of a gallery in Place des Vosges, in Paris; I just couldn’t get the image out of my head and felt the need to design a piece to remember it.” Kermiche recognises a mischievous streak within her work, “It is a beautiful mirror image, a mise en abyme of sorts which I love to play with in my designs.”

Brazilian designer and artist Paula Vilas launched her namesake brand in 2016. “I want my designs to be a conversation starter between people,” she says of her art-inspired pieces. “I find inspiration in the feminine forms and the art scene of the Modernists, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. I am interested in building and then deconstructing the female forms.”

Maison Margiela ‘Brass Wire Face’ bracelet, £420

Maison Margiela ‘Brass Wire Face’ bracelet, £420

Her new collection, Vilas, which incorporates faces in many forms, focuses on the artists André Breton and Paul Klee. “What I like the most about the Surrealism touch in everyday adornment is that you can subvert it to create a peculiar scene that will arouse curiosity. Also, it’s a reminder that life is not supposed to be boring or follow a straight path. I thought a lot about how to simplify bold and organic forms when I started designing the face motifs,” adds Vilas. “It was a search for deconstruction and my goal was to be able to create strong pieces only with lines…”

For Northern Ireland-based Grainne Morton, a self-proclaimed jewellery “collector”, the Surrealists were the perfect pairing for her mismatch aesthetic: her wonky-eyed and melting faces are created from found objects and antique precious metals. “I started using antique glass eyes a few years back when I came across my first miniature pair and then the designs grew from there.”

Of her inspiration Morton says: “I have had an affinity with the Surrealists since studying the period in art class back at school.” Recently she looked through the archive of Schiaparelli for inspiration. “It was bittersweet,” says Morton. “I have major regret not seeing Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli which was at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2003.”

For the jeweller Satta Matturi, who lives between Botswana and London, creativity is born from the studies of her rich cultural heritage. Matturi’s new collection “artful indulgence” drew upon graphic African masks: “African masks and masquerades are both distinctive and synonymous with West Africa. Specific mask designs, such as the ‘Nomoli’ and ‘Bundu’ are unique to Sierra Leone, while the tribal Ogoni masks, are similarly well known in Nigeria.”

Original Nigerian Ogoni wood mask. Horniman Museum, London, UK ©Heini Schneebeli\/Bridgeman

Original Nigerian Ogoni wood mask. Horniman Museum, London, UK ©Heini Schneebeli/Bridgeman

Says Matturi: “I have always found them fascinating having had the opportunity to see them worn in action as part of a masquerade as a little girl growing up in West Africa. Many people would think of them as ugly and with strong, harsh features, but I’ve always found beauty in them, maybe due to their deep spiritual and divine importance within the culture and people. Designing a mask which incorporated precious stones was very special for me; putting a modern twist to a traditional, spiritual and ceremonial piece.” Matturi’s signature “Nomoli Totem” earrings are made with 338 small, round brilliant cut diamonds with a total weight of 2 carats.

It seems we can’t get enough of faces, Natalie Kingham buying director at Matchesfashion.com says: “JW Anderson’s ‘Moon Face’ earrings have been very popular with the customer we call ‘the curator’. This woman is very engaged with craftsmanship and the arts and enjoys the aesthetics of design. Faces have also been present across ready-to-wear collections, from Acne and La DoubleJ to Isabel Marant. Our customers like a point of difference and styles that uplift your mood.”

For Matturi our obsession with the face motif is a little closer to home, “increasingly in jewellery we are seeing a huge depiction of ‘what makes you and/or me’ … possibly driven by the huge changes we have seen in the world. My mother always used to say to us, ‘You must strive to learn, you must work hard, you must enrich your lives, you must travel the world and conquer it too; but never forget where you came from!’” 

Editor Jo Ellison (jo.ellison@ft.com) Design Hannah Bishop, Gabriela Izquierdo, Anna Kaminska, Lopez, Kostya Penkov, Harriet Thorne, Paramjit Virdee Contributors Grace Cook, Aimee Farrell, Horatia Harrod, Hilary Kirby, Carola Long, Flora Macdonald Johnston, Ruth Metzstein, Charlie Porter, Simon Schama, Roz Speirs
For all advertising enquiries please contact Irene Michaelides: +44 (0)20 7775 6281, irene.michaelides@ft.com

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