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GOOD DESIGN IS FOREVER When native New Orleanian Mignon Faget began her design career in 1969, her creations collected admirations from the trendy and the traditional. In 1973, she launched her own atelier-style boutique. There are now five Mignon Faget galleries featuring her latest jewelry designs, collector favorites, and hand-selected local crafts and books. Faget’s approach to design involves deconstructing and then reconstructing observed forms, resulting in small sculptures that are a synthesis of concept, material, and function. With celebrated skill and style, Mignon transforms natural specimens, indigenous plants, and architectural details into objects of adornment that are the epitome of good design.
EXPLORE AND TRANSFORM The essential nature of Mignon Faget’s work can be found in these two words: explore and transform. The architecture of New Orleans, the bayous of Louisiana, and the shores of the Gulf of Mexico have served as her library and laboratory for the past forty-five years. “When I go on an expedition, I’ ll stay there for a day, or for a week, or as long as it takes for me to learn more about it. And then I take what I learn and interpret it into a piece of jewelry. When the piece itself speaks to me as a new entity imbued with a spirit, it is ready for the wearer to take in that spirit and make it a part of her.” SEA 1970
THE MATERIAL OF A MOMENT How do you capture an elusive thing like potential? How do you retain the memory of a transitive object? With Knots, one of her most popular collections, Faget utilizes the strengths of lost wax casting to answer these questions and harness in metal the material of a moment. “The knot is a richly symbolic form with endless possibilities. I was fascinated by the feel of fabric, the tension created when it was pulled taut, wrapped tightly. Then translated into metals, these forms take on a special fascination – a kind of frozen energy.”
KNOTS 1976
LOUISIANA 1985
LE BON TEMPS Costumes created out of the tropical foliage growing near Bayou St. John, nights spent reveling with carnival krewes and listening to jazz in the Vieux Carre, day trips to the Barrier Islands and spring crawfish boils on the patio; growing up in the lush landscape of Louisiana, Faget has flourished in the culture and traditions of her birthplace and celebrates them with style. “I see what I have seen all my life, the sensual beauty of my environment....�
A CORPOREAL PALACE Mignon Faget’s work addresses the nature of adornment itself by contemplating the body as architecture. Architectural details are deconstructed and miniaturized, enhancing the human form with balance, grandeur, or grounding, as they do on a building. The collections Romanesque Return and Schema focus on this concept and represent an important period of creative expansion for Faget. “I consider myself not only a jewelry designer, but a fashion designer. The whole silhouette, the whole look, is very much in my mind when I’m designing jewelry.”
ROMANESQUE RETURN 1990
PYLON 1997
A LINE AROUND WHAT’S YOURS Certain Mignon Faget collections demonstrate a sense of independence and strength. Faget has explored jewelry as personal armament and created works that mark boundaries and milestones. These amulets and talismans remind us and others of what is important. “My work is very personal. Whatever it is that I’m particularly interested in at that phase of my life comes out in my work.”
PLACE MAKES US WHOLE New Orleans is a place where the colonial and the contemporary, the refined and the primitive, relax into each other. It creates an atmosphere that is simultaneously provocative and poised. Similarly, Faget’s works juxtapose toughness and fragility, strength and whimsy, tradition and innovation, enhancing each other to form a stronger whole. “I feel this work serves as a metaphor for the resilience and fortitude that has always characterized our city.”
IRONWORKS 2006
PENETRATING THE SURFACE OF THE OBVIOUS Faget has said that were she not an artist, she would likely be a biologist, studying the way that plants and animals express the environment where they are formed. This interest is evident in her designs. Nodes of bamboo exhibit marks of robust growth from heavy rains, and a silver sea shell gleams as though still wet, while its structure resembles a wave. “If you look very closely at something as simple as a shell, a snail, it’s very revealing.”
BAMBOO 2008
LINKED WITH STYLE A piece of jewelry can represent a connection to an organization, a sign of faith, a shared history or a personal bond. It is often the catalyst for conversations that initiate a new relationship. It is not uncommon to hear someone say, “Nice to meet you. I see you are wearing your Mignon Faget.” “It’s very, very rewarding to me to meet my collectors, whether they are new collectors, or collectors that have worn my jewelry for many years. We connect through the jewelry. If I present something, if someone appreciates it, and loves it, and wears it, then that completes the circle.”
HIVE 2011
REIMAGINING THE FAMILIAR In 1969, Faget established a workshop and opened a clothing boutique in New Orleans; she designed ‘way out rags’ made from accessible fabrics and colorful suedes adorned with block prints and hardware. A determined and resourceful artist, she melted down silver wedding gifts to make her first collection of jewelry to complement her hippie couture. The HEIR collection began a series of designs that reexamines her early works with textiles. “Through my work I realize that what I do is a kind of personal revalidation, something that takes place through each collection. I’ve come to understand that I seek out, absorb, and then represent these familiar things so they become part of my personal costume, for the costume is the expression of the persona.”
HEIR 2012
OBSCURO 2014
IN GRATITUDE As I sit in my Magazine Street studio in New Orleans and see the bustle of life outside of my window, I feel a deep sense of gratitude. Ten years ago, the streets of our city were full of floodwaters. New Orleans, once a bastion of culture, had to rebuild. When the world viewed the devastation of our city, it saw a treasure that was nearly lost. The streets of New Orleans once again pulse with music and action. We deeply value the noble works and caring words of those who believe in this city and her people. Ten years later, we are in gratitude. From myself and everyone at Mignon Faget, Ltd., we would like to express our sincere appreciation with a new amulet, IN GRATITUDE. The amulet design is based on a Tibetan symbol for gratitude, conveying thankfulness and an awareness of the abundance that is present in your life. A portion of all proceeds from the design will go to support Tulane University’s Newcomb Art Gallery and the Tulane/ Xavier Center for BioEnvironmental Research. I will wear mine and think of you. I have had an amazing 45 years of designing and sharing my passions with collectors worldwide and I look forward to many more to come. ~ Mignon Faget
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MIGNON FAGET GALLERIES: 3801 Magazine Street
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504.891.2005
Baton Rouge Towne Center Mignon Faget by Mail
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Lakeside
225.932.9783
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504.835.2244
Parc Lafayette
800.375.7557 • mignonfaget.com
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Canal Place
337.534.8753
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504.524.2973