Boucheron's long-standing history has blossomed since its creation in 1858 and although it may be the oldest jewelry house in Paris's iconic Place Vendôme, the maison is never one to stand still having captured real flowers for eternity and turned sand and shavings of marble into precious baubles in the past its newest collection looks to the skies utilizing modern technology and expert craftsmanship …
Titled Contemplation, the collections focuses on the natural beauty of the world capturing the ephemeral movement of a cloud a raindrop falling or a feather’s swirling in flight.
Comprising of sixty-seven pieces, it is to date the most personal and intimate collection of High Jewellery ever created by Creative Director Claire Choisne with an extremely sensorial approach: pieces seem to quiver with the slightest breath on the skin, fragments of stars are caught in airy matter, a cloud of diamonds swirls on a weightless necklace.
Here Claire Choisne highlights the key pieces within the collection …
GOUTTE DE CIEL – SKYDROP
One of my most favourite pieces within the collection with this necklace “I wanted to capture the impalpable and to offer a piece of sky to wear around the neck. This dream was made possible the day we discovered Aerogel.”
Aerogel is the material that has the lowest density in the world, consisting of 99.8% of air and 0.2% of silica. NASA actually uses it in space, on panels, to capture stardust. Aerogel has the same properties as the sky, and is blue for the same reasons the sky is blue.
Therefore its colour varies depending on the light. Outwardly this stone looks similar to that of a moonstone but in terms of strength it is much more inferior to a mineral so the stone is enclosed by a shell of rock crystal set and encrusted with diamonds. There is also a bracelet with an aerogel insert to complete the set.
NUAGE EN APESANTEUR
"I wanted to evoke a cloud surrounding a woman’s throat, rather than represent one literally”, explains Claire Choisne. But how could it be possible to replicate, the vaporous effect of the millions of droplets which come together to form a cloud in nature, in a piece of jewelry? Maison Boucheron consulted a programmer, who devised an algorithm to bring this unique cumulus to life.
It took two years to develop the materials for this unprecedented necklace, which consists of nearly 10,000 titanium threads capped with 4,018 diamonds and glass beads simulating the droplets of water. Following every movement of the neck and appearing weightless like a cloud.
FLÈCHE SUR CIEL
The inspiration behind the necklace was the “Open Sky” work of art by James Turrell located in Naoshima, Japan. When laid, this necklace depicts a window onto the sky. When worn, it has the suppleness of fabric.
The structure of this necklace is made of titanium, composed by numerous hexagons forming a supple knit. Every hexagon is covered with airbrushed mother of pearl and with diamonds. What is also fabulous about this piece is that the 30 layers of lacquer covering the mother of pearl are so thin that we can still see the iridescence of mother of pearl under them.
On its surface, Claire Choisne has chosen to represent a stormy weather with the mother-of-pearl diamond clouds set off by slate coloured lacquer. This celestial vision is further illuminated by a 35-carat sugarloaf tanzanite with a deep ultramarine hue. In the same cloudy spirit, a rectangular ring has a plateau of white lacquer adorned with an 8.52-carat tanzanite, surrounded by a diamond-paved setting.
EN PASSANT - PASSING THROUGH
Utilizing designs from the archives and dating back to 1901, Boucles D’Oreilles en Passant represents the movement of passing clouds hovering over the ear “expressing the lightness and movement of a cloud perfectly.”
The result is a wholly contemporary earring simple enough to be worn every day.
CARESSE DE PLUME - FEATHER CARESS
It is the softness of a feather and its caress that we wanted to depict here. The mother of pearl was worked extremely thinly, to the point that we engraved the “lashes” of the feather in it while keeping the natural curve of the feather.
The necklace is set with 1.6cts of diamonds and Akoya cultured pearls. There is also a ring and brooch to complete the set.
To see the rest of the collection view the video below...
