Jewels for my Valentine - The Royal Jewellers Book 1

Valentine

Jewels for my

The Royal Jewellers Book No.1

by Kostas Metaxas www.ikon.tv

Jewellery is poetry, philosophy, history and technology and though it is a modern expression of a rich cultural heritage, it is inspired by history’s finest moments, by the perfection of nature, the beauty and grace of the stars and the wondrous microscopic structures that are the foundations of life itself.

CONTENTS Vol.1 01. Mouawad [Beirut] 07. Adler [Geneva] 13. Carnet [Hong Kong] 19. Buccellati [Milan] 25. Jewellery Theatre [Moscow] 32. David Morris [London] 39. Anna-Maria Cammilli [Milan] 45. Epoque [Brussels] 50. Fanourakis [Athens] 56. Pasquale Bruni [Valenza] 62. Mauboussin [Paris] 68. Fulvio-Maria Scavia [Milan] 74. Sevan Bicakci [Istanbul] 80. Van Cleef & Arpels [Paris] 86. Stephen Webster [London] All Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

It was 1986, I had just started my first magazine “Vive la vie”, and was heading to New York.

I asked my Editor “Do you want me to do some interviews whilst I’m there?”.

He answered, “Sure, why not”.

So the first thing I did when I reached my hotel was phone Harry Winston.

“Hello, this is ....from....I’m here in New York to interview the best jewellers in the world - Tiffany, Van Cleef... and thought that I should definitely include Harry Winston on my list.”

That first week, I met with and interviewed Ronald Winston, Philippe Arpels [Van Cleef & Arpels] and John Loring [Tiffany] amongst others.

Thirty years and over 1,000 interviews later, my fascination has taken me to the secret workshops of the most important Jewellers of the world.

This book is the first of a series [taken from interviews conducted for my TV series] on these sublime artists.

- Kostas Metaxas www.exero.com Kostas Metaxas is an award-winning editor-publisher /broadcast producer [The Royal Jewellers TV Program] who also consults for the international jewellery/gem and watch business.

Copyright Kostas Metaxas

interview with Robert Mouawad

The word jeweller means really a lot.

It is mystery, it is glamour, it is vision.

It is a word of fiction.

The Royal Jewellers Mouawad

Mouawad

01

The magic that a jeweller has to do everyday is somehow the reflection of his daily entrepreneurial skills.

The core of the jeweller’s business is creation.

The Royal Jewellers Mouawad

A jeweller is there to enhance the confidence of a woman in herself.

To create for her, this little thing, which added to her beauty, makes her even more beautiful.

02

A jewel is not like a dress.

A dress you may wear it once, twice, three times.

She has to select it, she has to think it over.

From the first look she has to be really impressed by the piece of jewellery because she identifies herself with it and she feels that this piece of jewellery is going to be with her forever.

The Royal Jewellers Mouawad

Every woman has the same feelings as a Queen.

There is no difference at all. It is only the means that differentiate one woman from the other.

03

The first time I met the King, it was with my father, so I did not have to worry so much about what to say and how to be introduced, I just followed what my father was doing.

For me it was one of the best lessons I ever learnt.

The Royal Jewellers Mouawad

I love creation. My passion is to create.

04

When I looked at my father, how much time he devoted to this business; the little workshop he had, the passion he had for watches and jewellery.

The excitement I could feel in his eyes.

When you put your heart in it, it should become a piece of art.

The Royal Jewellers Mouawad

You know stones are my heart; they are my life, my passion.

I breathe through stones.

I used to buy big rough and cut them, to get the biggest stones ever, and the best quality.

05

I owned the Jubilee diamond. I owned the Premier Rose. I cut three stones from it over 100 carats and they carry my name.

Whoever today wants a big stone, does not have too many addresses to visit, I am one of them.

The Royal Jewellers Mouawad

Why do people need jewellery?

06

Because a man without dreams is not a man.

Jewellery is something of an illusion; we need some touch of reality and some touch of illusion.

We have to put them together in order to give sense to our existence.

Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

interview with Carlos & Franklin Adler

Adler The Royal Jewellers

Adler

Adler is a family business trading more than 100 years. We are the third generation.

It was started by my grandfather who was apprenticed in Vienna.

He went there to see another style, another view, another outlook on jewellery.

When he came back to Turkey he mixed both cultures.

The Byzantine Empire and his acquired culture from Vienna which was the centre of all art during that period.

07

Adler The Royal Jewellers

My grandfather was a Prussianhe was like a soldier. He was a man who would say “O.K. today we have made 100 liras that is enough. Close the shop”.

This behaviour drove my father crazy. If my grandfather didn’t like a customer, he threw them out. It was as simple as that.

When my grandfather died, the first thing my father did was take an axe and smash the shop to pieces. He picked a good architect; a Swedish architect living in Turkey, and completely modernized it.

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Adler The Royal Jewellers

FRANKLIN: Jewellery as the ultimate way of showing ones style, ones taste and it is the finishing touch to a beautiful dress or woman.

CARLOS: Jewellery is really a form of art and has existed since the cave man times. You know the same time we find drawings on cave walls at the same time we find jewellery. It exists, shells, rocks that exist from that time and it is a matter for the artist of express himself.

Jewellery is an art in many stages, because when you see a finished piece of jewellery, it is not only one craftsman that has worked on it; there have been four or five.

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Adler The Royal Jewellers

It starts with the man who actually cuts and patterns the stones, then you go to on to the man who imagines the jewellery and designs it.

Then this is passed to the craftsmen who actually have to create the object from a two-dimensional drawing.

Then you have the setter, he is also a very important craftsman so that the stones are set correctly and give the right impression. It is a co-operative effort.

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Adler The Royal Jewellers

11

My Father would say, “You will go at the top of the counter during Christmas period and watch the hands and if you see anyone slipping something into his pocket, you will come and tell me in my ear.� And I did, I did see a lady put something in her pocket, she was a very rich lady but she was a kleptomaniac.

Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

Adler The Royal Jewellers Adler

12

Interview with Michelle Ong

It’s a hobby turned into a passion where I want to make beautiful things. I use jewels and gemstones as a medium for artistic expression.

Carnet The Royal Jewellers

Carnet

I enjoy sociology so I studied sociology so when I came back I didn’t really want to be a social worker and then there was this family friend who was the first importer of the diamonds in Hong Kong and his son was in the business and he was emigrating and said you know what, this is something totally different, come, and learn the trade, see whether you’re interested. And it started like this.

13

Carnet The Royal Jewellers

My first day of work I still remember you these little gems, I thought they were beautiful. I tried. Then you study the more technical side , grading , this and that but to play with it, it was a pleasure.

And then I found after a few more years, it was not enough and I wanted to create.

I was going to a big party and wanted to buy something, I didn’t find anything I liked.

14

When I create I think you know what I would like to wear and for what occasions, what I can wear with, so I, for me it’s the different angle, so sometimes we start from stones and sometimes it’s just a concept. We’re surrounded by things, a line, a silhouette.

Carnet The Royal Jewellers

That from the beginning I’ve worked with a workshop and this worker was still with me for the last 20 years so we sort of progressed together as a collaboration, that’s why it was very important and it’s very tactile and sometimes on paper it’s totally on paper, but you know to make it come alive.

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Carnet The Royal Jewellers

The lack of formal training helped me a little bit because there’s no boundary. At first when I had a concept and went to the workshop, they would say it’s not possible, can you do this and that, and I would say “No find a way!”

16

People want something unique, they want something different and they want the personal touch, that is how I feel.

Carnet The Royal Jewellers

17

I don’t know how you found me because we never advertise. So in a way it’s a pleasure people seek me out to say you know I’m interested in what you do you know, let us know a bit more. I find it is really a real compliment.

Carnet The Royal Jewellers

The secret is that I don’t want to compete with anybody, I was happy, contented to making my little thing and I can survive on it and I can stay open, that was my little aim, I had no ambition to compete with anybody.

Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

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The Royal Jewellers Buccellati

Buccellati

interview with Maria-Cristina Buccellati

My grandfather was a very good designer and he loved to create, to work with gold creating abstract designs. He worked with incredible artisans because that was also his skill. To find artisans who could interpret and understand his designs.

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He was the first Italian to open a shop in New York, in 1952 and then he opened in Bells Beach, then he opened in Florence, in Rome. He was an entrepreneur really.

The Royal Jewellers Buccellati 20

My brother Andrea is the only one in the family who has inherited the skills and capability to design. He follows my father in every step of the creation, he’s been learning from him for a long, long time you know it was a very tough school, but now he makes amazing pieces.

The fun is to see the difference between the style of my grandfather, my father and Andrea because they all keep the same style but you see an evolution. My grandfather was very, very Baroque, then my father became a little bit more Renaissance, Andrea is very geometrical.

The Royal Jewellers Buccellati 21

We don’t do collection, we continue producing all year long. My brother and my father every night usually around 6 o’clock they relax and start drawing, designing, they have some stones so they start building on the stone an idea, an object, a necklace, and it’s you know a moment where they’re quiet they can you know be a little bit more creative and they design, and then as soon as the design is conceived it’s you know perfectioned and then they call the artisan and they start working on it.

The Royal Jewellers Buccellati

All our artisans have kept the same techniques which go back to the 17th Century. As you saw, we have the manual drill that goes with the pedal, the flame is with the mouth, everything’s absolutely manual and we kept it as it was 300 years ago.

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The Royal Jewellers Buccellati

We don’t want to change, that’s the way to keep the piece unique in a way, because of course you know you might some two rings that look alike or two brooches, but they’re not because there is the human, it’s the touch that makes it different one from the other.

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The Royal Jewellers Buccellati 24

Everyone specialise in something typical you know there’s one who makes incredible tool, honeycomb workmanship, another one who makes the leaves in gold and diamond with a certain movement that looks real, another one knows how to make this kind of in chained objects, there’s no competition because everyone has his own speciality.

Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

Jewelly Theatre The Royal Jewellers

Jewellery Theatre

interview with Maxim Voznesensky

25

Jewelry Theater has two meanings: It’s a work of art which you can wear or you can put it on a stand and enjoy looking at it.

Jewelly Theatre The Royal Jewellers

All my life I have been working in jewelry, only in jewelry, and 12 years ago, with my wife (unfortunately now deceased), gave birth to a just one child - Jewellery Theater . She was also a very talented artist (painter) and we combined both our skills.

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Jewelly Theatre The Royal Jewellers

When I was little, I used to love to make things from metal, wood, paper For me it was important not to just make something, but also to sell it or swap for something.

I always wanted to make things that make people happy and amaze them.

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Jewelly Theatre The Royal Jewellers

In the past there was the Tsar, there was the empire. Faberge existed and all their objects were made for the Tsar.

Faberge did unique eggs, which no one in the world was doing.

Nowadays , in Russia we have great painters, who continue the tradition of such greats as Kandinsky, Malevich, Chagalle and this is why you are seeing something different in my work . Russia has it’s own unique identity and style in art, culture, ballet.

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Jewelly Theatre The Royal Jewellers

If you talk about us, were are people who are driven to do what we do.

About others, I can’t say. My artisans can be maniacs, they don’t sleep, they don’t have wives, no sex even!

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Jewelly Theatre The Royal Jewellers

People want something more individual, more from the heart. This is when you honestly put in your heart & soul into a piece, when the whole team gives everything. No compromises, people prepared to give their life. They can die for this.

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Jewelly Theatre The Royal Jewellers

Once a client came in, she was a petite girl, beautiful, and wanted to order something custom. She took out a small ladies bag and pulled out a big mouse trap and she wanted the same one, but a miniature one (to put on her) and a working one. So that when someone touches it, it catches them!

Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

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interview with Jeremy Morris

The Royal Jewellers David Morris

David Morris

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There are very, very few people who produce great jewellery nowadays. The reason they come to us is because of our creative design and it is very well made. I personally try to combine the French spirit of how jewellery should be made well with the English spirit of Victorian, Edwardian jewellery - which we are very good at.

The Royal Jewellers David Morris

As kid I used to, like I bring my kids up here now, I bring them up to the workshop, and they like to play around. I give them a piece of plasticine and they stick cubic zirconias into it. I used to do the same thing as a kid.

I was at art school for a year or so and I started work at the bench. I worked for a small manufacturing company that did most of the outwork for Boucheron and Chaumet here in London. One of the top craftsman who was the same guy who taught Alain Boucheron, was sitting at the bench and I sat with him for 2 years. I was really good at it. I don’t know why I made the choice. But what I do know is that once I actually started to make it, I found it enormously gratifying and actually 20 years later I think some of the most gratifying experiences I had was when I finished a piece of jewellery.

It is a very fulfilling feeling.

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The Royal Jewellers David Morris

From my experience now, having trained a lot of people, our workshop is virtually all house trained and I overlook every inch of it, I see in certain people, different qualities. Some of them are really good at forming. Others are very technical and they can make something extremely straight and claws absolutely perfect with solder joints absolutely perfect but they might not be able to get the same form or dimension into the jewellery.

It is about proportion

The proportion of the ring – that the stem does not sit up too high, and that it is actually straight on the shank and the thickness of the shank will be correct from the top of the ring to the bottom. The thing flows and that it does sort of jump at you and you don’t think: “Oh that is a bit heavy that is a bit thick”. It feels right and that is has the right texture – I mean it is like a handmade suit.

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The Royal Jewellers David Morris

We are mainly inspired by Antique Jewellery. It is really, really well made and the attention to detail you just do not see in today’s jewellery.

Art is when someone creates something from his soul.

He has spent years doing it and you know he becomes good at it, creating from his imagination something that people want to acquire. They want a piece of you.

When you see the photographs of our jewellery, you will see that there are a lot of necklaces that are the result of collections of stones built up over a period of time. I don’t just go out to Antwerp and buy a parcel of stones.

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The Royal Jewellers David Morris

I have a necklace with antique cut cushion diamonds and they are all very nice colour, nice purity stones, they are really old stones.

I collected them and it has taken me 3 to 6 months to build a collection of 50 stones from 1 to 2 ½ carats.

You cannot produce them from rough diamonds today. The requirements were different then. Someone dug the diamonds out of the ground and he had no costs. He polished them whichever way he wanted. I mean he took the octahedral diamond crystal, polished the top off it, polished a girdle, build a few facets on it and that was it.

I have friends of mine, who are rough diamond buyers, and I go into partnership with them and we produce very special stones.

What is interesting is that most people who produce stones are diamond people and diamond people are not jewellers.

36

There is a lot of interest in cushions [shaped diamonds].

People like cushions. Emerald cuts are very strong at the moment. People like aascher cuts as well which are cuts that we had in the 1920’s 30’s and very wide cornered emerald cuts. It is the proportion of the stone that is terribly important.

The Royal Jewellers David Morris

They know plenty about what the value is and how they can squeeze the last cent out the rough but they don’t really know the best way to market a diamond. So I find myself that when I am buying the rough that I can actually produce stones very much tailored to the market tastes.

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The Royal Jewellers David Morris

Some people like very spready stones, you tip them to one side and you see straight through them. Other people like very thick stones because they hold the brilliance. I don’t like either. I like something in the middle but I like to have a smallish table with a nice steep top on it, I think that holds a tremendous amount of brilliance in a stone.

We would not have moved to Bond Street, where there are 50 jewellers in a half a mile radius if we believed that we were scared of competition. I need to have people look around to see how good we are.

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Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

The Royal Jewellers Anna-Maria Cannilli

Anna Maria Camilli

interview with Riccardo Rennai

Annamaria Cammilli proposes collections where gold alloy is always very original: many different colours of gold, often mixed together. Diamonds pavĂŠ and 18kt gold are often mixed with original cut of precious and semi-precious stones and south sea pearls.

This brand is creating jewelry in Firenze since 1982.

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The Royal Jewellers Anna-Maria Cannilli

At the beginning she was only a painter so she’s really an artist. She was introduced to gold entering in our family as my father was in the jewellery business but at the beginning she was a painter. So it’s a good mix of art and jewellery.

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The Royal Jewellers Anna-Maria Cannilli

I started in 1989. At the beginning I was just in assisting the sales and the etc, as usual it happens to the people that inside the family has to be and it’s not easy eh because people don’t treat you really in a good way, ah he’s son of the owner.

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The Royal Jewellers Anna-Maria Cannilli

Five years ago we decided to make this very, very different from the other companies so we decide to begin to study the colour of the gold because other people working on the colour of the gems, so we decide to make really good choice of the colour of the gold so I think we are the only company now making five different colour of gold. That makes us different from the others. Then we started with the very good finishment that keeps the quality also after years.

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The Royal Jewellers Anna-Maria Cannilli

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Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

The Royal Jewellers Anna-Maria Cannilli

We don’t study what the other jewellers do, we study fashion trends.

That’s the new way to make jewellery.

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Epoque The Royal Jewellers

Epoque

interview with Patricia De Wit

45

Epoque fine jewels was founded by my mother in 1958.

She fell in love with antique jewellery because of the uniqueness, the beauty, the high standard of workmanship, the quality, the precious stones.

Epoque The Royal Jewellers

I was born in it and even when I was a little child when I was six years old I already join her to the shows and I was always by her side so no I never thought of doing anything else. I also fell in love with the business.

I studied History of Art at the university. Actually when I was 16, I already did my first gemmology course in Belgium.

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Epoque The Royal Jewellers

Modern jewellery has nothing to do with our jewellery.

It’s a different business. We go and look everyday for the unique thing that a great artist made and I think if you deal in modern jewellery you pick up your phone and you order something, that’s not very interesting I think I prefer to travel around the world and find interesting pieces that were made in the past.

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Epoque The Royal Jewellers

We have here a very nice piece by Lalique which we discovered last year we sold it to the to a museum in Paris but it’s really one of the finest pieces that we’ve seen by Lalique. He combined enamelling technique which he combined with glass flowers.

The fact that he combined diamonds which were precious material with glass which is an inexpensive material and in 1900 to use those two materials together was really a revolution at that time.

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Epoque The Royal Jewellers

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I stick to Lalique to be honest but it depends on what period you’re talking about. If you’re talking about the art deco period I would say Cartier jewellery but then with designers like Charlet Jacout he was one of the best designers Cartier ever had . For the 40’s and 50’s I would say Vancleef & Arpels and then towards the 70’s there was a lot of interesting jewellery made by Tiffany.

Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

Fanourakis The RoyalLina Jewellers

Fanourakis

interview with Lina Fanourakis

At a very young age, the only thing I knew is that I liked jewellery then I wanted to become a sculptor and then after sculpture, I was very interested in theatre, not as an actress but I want to do costume and this theatre design etc

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Fanourakis The RoyalLina Jewellers

At the time I had a little shop in Monasteraki fleamarket.

That’s how it started at the very, very beginning. The very first pieces I made were Greek jewellery, not ancient Greek jewellery, styles from Turkish occupation. I had enough of this very quickly, so I opened a workshop trying to express myself through jewellery.

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When you start something you are bound to imitate, willingly or not willingly, but then with the years the work I now can express what I have in my mind. Of course I did not know the techniques, now I know them but then I didn’t.

Fanourakis The RoyalLina Jewellers

52

I wanted to make big pieces, not very luxurious, not very shiny, very sculpturural but at the same time very light so they were easily wearable. Because I always think that jewels have to be worn to enjoy them. I thought maybe I should take a sheet of gold, really, really fine then add another sheet underneath to build volume. So they became as thick as I wanted but in between it was air.

Fanourakis The RoyalLina Jewellers

I try to make what I would want, or like. It sounds very egotistical but I don’t think you can make new things if you don’t think like them. You make one thing, this leads you to the next step and then I have disciplined myself to look for the things that would stimulate my imagination.

Usually I start with a vague idea that keeps in the back of my mind for a long time. And then suddenly I see something, might be anything, the idea about this one is to make this shape, just with one I say ribbon of gold so you just take the pliers and then you start making it. We want to make the edge oh, really with tiny pleats and we, so we can now it looks, here it doesn’t look because the edge is on the side, we having the pendant in blue. This is silver wire which we are going to put through this hole and we are going to bend them.

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Fanourakis The RoyalLina Jewellers

I use a lot of yellow gold, especially 22 carat because I like the colour. Also because easily by burning and several methods I can give it the tension I want, that’s why I don’t work very much with 18 carat, but I also use a lot of white gold. I like the combination of white gold studded with rose cut diamonds and the 22 carat gold because 22 carat gold sometimes is too warm so we have the grey colour of the white metal plus the diamonds give equilibrium.

Usually I start from the metals and not from the stones. The stones, mostly diamonds, have a decorative part to break the monotony of the metal, to give it some sparkle and so this is the most common combination in my work. As for the stones, I love them on you when they are really big, I’m talking about colourful stones with really nice colours and then the stone comes first.

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Fanourakis The RoyalLina Jewellers

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I don’t like things that look too mechanical. You can find many pieces of jewellery and some really nice, very nicely done, they give priority to the mechanic as if you constructed something. This for me, very rarely can be feminine or nice to be wear.

When we make things honestly we cannot escape from who we are.

Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

interview with Pasquale Bruni

When I was a little boy going to school I wanted to become a Doctor, but not a general practitioner but a researcher because according to me, art is a process of research - you travel and absorb everything around you and you then express all the experiences and everything you have seen in your work.

Bruni The Royal Pasquale Jewellers

Pasquale Bruni

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Bruni The Royal Pasquale Jewellers

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Because I could not study medicine in my town I looked around and decided to become a tailor, because a tailor creates a piece that is full of detail.

I ended up chosing metals because while a tailor buys a piece of fabric and works with it, metal is the most difficult medium to work with and to create art with.

The painter has a canvas, a formal shape where he is able to depict a design, whereas a goldsmith needs to create the canvass as well from raw materials.

Many great French Jeweller brands had their work made right here in Valenza.

Bruni The Royal Pasquale Jewellers

I worked in many stores until I was 20 years of age when I opened my first store in Valenza. It can be said that the greatest and most experienced teachers were in Valenza if we exclude those who were in Paris, because in France there were great designers and teachers also, but I knew those in Valenza - Cammorati, Illario, Botti were many great teachers.

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Each designer has his own special “style� mine is to create a concert, a thing that does not exist in jewellery art. Our jewellery is full of details, details that the other jewellery do not possess. You can see a beautiful jewel but it is naked but instead, the characterists that make Pasquale Bruni different, that which inspires me to actual create and make jewellery is just that detail - to create jewellery that is fun,.

Bruni The Royal Pasquale Jewellers

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If you were to pick up the smallest piece of Pasquale Bruni jewellery it is full of details, it is fun, it captures you. I make jewellery fun... I have taken the heart, the moon, the stars, the sun and I have produced them so small that I include them as details in my jewellery. Whichever of my pieces you look at they contain these elements as details as refinement. Just like a tailor sews a piece with cotton I make my jewellery with the sun, with the stars, with moons, because man cannot live without the sun, he cannot live without the stars... all of this brings me here.

Bruni The Royal Pasquale Jewellers

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One does not always think of a woman when it comes to creation of jewellery or design. When a jewel is born it is born firstly in the mind, if at the time when the idea is born you see the sea shore, you imagine the colours of the ocean, the sand, the sun, the sky... it depends where the creative mind finds itself at that time. For example if the idea comes when he is dining with a beautiful woman then the idea of the jewel is born thinking of the woman - the moment of birth for a design is always different.

Bruni The Royal Pasquale Jewellers

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In time the most value aspect of the jewellery is the art involved in it. In the years of 70 and 80 evrything became fashion - jewellery is not fashion, fashion is something that comes and goes, jewellery for me does not pass, it is art, it continues, it never dies, the longer time passes the more precious and valuable it becomes.

Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

Mauboussin The Royal Jewellers

Mauboussin

interview with Patrick Mauboussin

Mauboussin is a jeweller in Place Vendome, in Paris.

And it was born in 1827 and it’s still in the same family, and for the time being, I am very proud to represent the 6th generation of jewellers.

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Mauboussin in the entomology seems to be “several” “nice” “signatures” - “Mau” “bous” “sin”, in old French .

Mauboussin The Royal Jewellers

It starts naturally as an artisan, and after with a change of course of great customers from the aristocracy and after the Royal family, we worked with them. The real strategy started with Jean Mauboussin, and that was in the early 20’s, and that was in the Art Deco period.

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I definitely didn’t want to join the company. I was more interested in graphic arts and I love it, l really love and after I was selling to some advertising companies at the times, doing graphic arts or little graphic jobs.

Mauboussin The Royal Jewellers

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One time my father, when I was ending my studies, he was very sure “O.K. you have finished your thing, you have a little job that is OK, and now you get some holidays before joining it again. Why don’t you try a training course in what you like in the workshop? First you would start with some metals not precious metals at all, and after if it is going well, you will use silver and at last, last, last, it should be a drop of gold – nothing else”. I said yes because I thought it would be very interesting. After I start creating with my hands, some rings or brooches or just to learn and I loved it.

Mauboussin The Royal Jewellers

What I discovered was the third dimension, which was for me ,much more important, because you know when you realise a jewel or a ring or something, it is like sculpture – it has volume and space and how you build it. It is between sculpture and architecture.

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I also discovered that from nothing, from a piece of metal like that, with your hand and with a wish that you have, you can hammer it perfectly or create something, and from nothing, you create something which has a proper life.

Mauboussin The Royal Jewellers

I was and am still curious of any metal used. Anything. Just to mix and how to do something. I didn’t know it should be a jewel or something. Just the wish to create or to do something different. But after when you have the chance to work a little bit with different colours of gold and this is very, very interesting because you feel in your hand with your tool how to use the sculpture of the metal and the resistance of the metal. It is like wood, you feel the metal like wood come to life.

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Jewellery means pleasure. Something which is wearing a lot of emotion and, I would say, the magic of the precious metals because it is rare. Let us say the role of the jeweller is like an alchemist, which has the power to know about the stones, what is the precious one what is not and what is the power of each stone and how to use with metals to enhance them and to give to the “Powerful” this rarity and this power.

Mauboussin The Royal Jewellers

I like to mix in terms of jewellery, tradition and the modernity. And this modernity and especially for me and maybe a little different in my family, is first to have no taboo.

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I would be more than proud if in a 100 years or 150 years, if Mauboussin of course is still a great name, has kept its culture and some of our jewellery, are considered in history as “a witness of their time�.

Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

Scavia The Royal Jewellers

Scavia

interview with Fulvia-Maria Scavia

My grandfather, my mother and even the father of my grandfather were jewellers.

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I used to play when I was a baby next to my grandfather who was paralytic but used to work on his table so I was very familiar with gold, with stones. My education was in the shop, in the factory, between the jewellery.

I was very interested in art, in the sculpture and in the architecture but more the conceptual, not the description of the details but the part that is living.

Scavia The Royal Jewellers

I was very arrogant at that time, I would say I will show the world what I feel and what I think would be the very best.

Now I wouldn’t say something like that. But at that time I was young and driven and now I want it to work hard to make the best.

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Scavia The Royal Jewellers

For me jewellery must be say a creation innovation and surprise, it must surprise and look just perfect and then joyful colour, happiness it must give you pleasure.

I don’t want to speak about value with my jewels. You have to discover later that it is made with very impressive stones.

I don’t want my pieces, even the most expensive, are kept in the safe, I want that they are so easy so refreshing so happy that you have to wear.

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Scavia The Royal Jewellers

If a woman buy by herself it is the pleasure of you know some very great and subtle mystery that she can discover in the pieces.

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Jewellery piece must be let’s say the secret language by a man to a woman. When you give a ring to your wife, this ring will contain such a great value for her because you give it to her with love. That no price can pay.

Scavia The Royal Jewellers

We start creating a piece, a shape and then we look for the stone. This is why we had to go into the recutting and shaping of stones. Sometime we make a triangle modified shape diamond or emerald. We cannot find it so we have to buy the rough and cut it ourselves.

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Scavia The Royal Jewellers

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When I was younger I took a PhD in Geology and I studied the architecture, structures and morphology of diamonds … because they’re a piece of nature, they’re a piece of the mystery of the earth.

Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

The Royal Jewellers Sevan

Sevan

interview with Sevan Bicakci

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This jewellery is about patience, it’s time consuming, extremely labour intensive work coming from the hands of incredibly talented craftsmen and artists.

His jewellery is about everything that surrounds him in his daily life, it’s the cultural heritage, Istanbul with its architecture with its legends, with the Byzantine legacy and the pagan past, hedonism, ottoman sultans, concubines, the stories from the harem.

The Royal Jewellers Sevan

As an Armenian kid growing up in Istanbul he would have had two choices, could have been about becoming a car mechanic and the other one is the path he is in, he found himself in the right environment by great chance from his father’s wish he started working as an intern in a jewellery workshop when he was just twelve years of age.

As a kid in general he was taking toys apart, reassembling them in different new patterns, right now he’s 38 but the level of enthusiasm is still the same, he feels the same excitement as he felt it entering the workshop of his first master ‌

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The Royal Jewellers Sevan

In the workshops of Istanbul there is a strong tradition, you have to respect your master in earlier times when they were asked which school they graduated sometimes they gave answers like the Grand Bazaar university, it’s an alternative system of education. He worked long years in small workshops, tiny spaces with five people working in them.

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The Royal Jewellers Sevan

Ten years ago he had in his mind creating unique pieces of jewellery only with great detail, attention to detail, he wanted to create a new language for jewellery making, this is not a typical Turkish or Istanbullian style, he has the vision and he created it together with his precious collaborating artists and artisans.

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The Royal Jewellers Sevan

It’s of course not easy to give a simple description or explanation, the muse is just in air, there are ideas in the air. There is a story telling process at the beginning and he works together with a serious group of very skilled people, calligraphers, painters, sculptors.

He delegates the work first comes the story telling and then on the basis of the story the jewellery gets constructed.

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The Royal Jewellers Sevan

He loves his work and to look as if the pieces would have spent 1,000 years underneath the soil, the philosophies about maybe the Byzantine Emperor Alice in Wonderland or the idea is new but the look is old. 24 carat gold and silver to his understanding and taste the best materials to create that object you can wear them and the more they get worn the more beautiful the textures become, the surfaces look.

He doesn’t like to make use of modern cuts of diamonds because their job is to sparkle and his jewellery is not meant to sparkle and just to embellish, his work is meant to tell stories, so in this case all kinds of materials are important because of their support to the story.

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The Royal VanJewellers Cleef & Arpels

Van Cleef & Arpels

interview with Stanislas de Quercize

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The story begins as most fairy tales end with a heaven sent wedding between Estelle Arpels and Alfred Van Cleef.

Estelle is the daughter of a precious stone wholesaler and the sister of expert gemmologists. Alfred is the son of a diamond merchant from Amsterdam. The year is 1896, the die is cast, their adventure will be enriched over the year by fidelity, feminity, glamour and excellence. Today, the spirit of the family is alive: creativity and craftsmanship are pillars of the Van Cleef & Arpels soul expressed through the technical mastery with the Mystery Setting or the expertise in the art of transformations.

The Royal VanJewellers Cleef & Arpels

It’s a style which is evoking nature and couture, two things which are ephemeral and we are forces in the air.

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The jewellery at the beginning was invented by men and women to protect against bad omen. That’s why graves throughout the world you have people being buried in the old times with weapons on one side and jewellery the other side.

The Royal VanJewellers Cleef & Arpels

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Jewellery is teamwork. If you would go upstairs to see the workshop you have 45 people, 45 golden hands, they’re working very close to each other and they’re learning from each other. We had a young one that started Monday, he’s 24 years old and you know the oldest one has been 40 years with us is 62 now. But they’re working together.

The Royal VanJewellers Cleef & Arpels

At Vancleef and Apels they have no rows, animals have no claws, so this is a dream place, the place where I think we were one part of time, the place we would like to be all the time, you have lucky animals, at Vancleef and Apels you will find butterflies, dragonflies, even a fairy. You know we have a lot of fairies here in place ‌ in the salon you have fairies even on the wall. Why, because people like, we dreaming of a fairy whispering to your ears, what is your wish, what is your wish today? And as you know, as soon as you express your wish, 50% of the job is done because you already have a purpose, you have a goal.

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The Royal VanJewellers Cleef & Arpels

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Now something which was interesting was also the zipper.

The zip necklace which was dreamt by the Duchess of Windsor, she came to see us and she said I am dreaming about a necklace that would work, a zip that would work. It took us seven years to make it for her, unfortunately she died before receiving it and now we sell it, it’s part of the unique pieces we sell but in the Duchess of Windsor is not any more with us, but that’s something of her is a dream, the ability to invent something and now this piece of jewellery, this creation is a way for her to be alive.

The Royal VanJewellers Cleef & Arpels

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Interviews from Royal Jewellers can be viewed online at: www.ikon.tv

Webster The RoyalStephen Jewellers

Stephen Webster

interview with Stephen Webster

Stephen Webster is a company that enjoys making quite bold statement jewellery. Quite colourful, because after sort of 26 years of being in the industry if you are lucky enough to pull out the parts that you enjoy and to work in and with, that is what I have done.

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Webster The RoyalStephen Jewellers

It’s all I know that is for sure, and I suppose you know my wife works in the business as well, my brother he is in the workshop‌ you know this is my livelihood, my family, it is everything.

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Webster The RoyalStephen Jewellers

I came from I suppose the wrong side of the tracks, and for a start I went to art school when I was 16 and not really knowing what to do and picked up on jewellery while I was there thinking this really looks great, I don’t know if it was the tools, the shiny objects, I don’t know what it was but something I honed in on and I stuck with it.

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Webster The RoyalStephen Jewellers

I left art school to go straight into a job. I was making hand made chains in Hatton Gardens which really thinking about that now, yes that is a very small stiff world. I knew that this was not what I wanted to do and almost as soon as I started I started looking for another job.

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Webster The RoyalStephen Jewellers

This was mid 70’s. I was a punk and I was completely punk and I was probably one of the only ones in Hatton gardens at the time. I used to get picked on for that reason but I don’t know if it was stubbornness or what, I stuck to that and I also stuck to jewellery. I went and worked for a designer, and it was when I was working for this designer that I actually knew that there is much more to this industry.

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Webster The RoyalStephen Jewellers

The French understand about luxury, they understand protecting and building a brand. I don’t think we are very good at that. We are quite good at encouraging people to be I suppose sort of freer thinking, experimental in our art schools. Certainly St. Martins, which is where a lot of people come from, feeds people to be doing something different.

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Webster The RoyalStephen Jewellers

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