From surreal designs to artist-inspired collaborations and fluid excessive jewelry, the previous yr in jewelry has seen all of it. Listed here are a few of our favorite jewelry moments of 2024.
Hedi Slimane interprets Jean Arp’s sculptures into jewelry items for the Celine Bijoux d’Artistes Mission
(Picture credit score: Jean-Marie Binet)
Varieties have been an summary idea for German-French sculptor, painter, and poet, Jean Arp, who drew on nature’s natural silhouettes to create sensual shapes in his work.
The ephemeral nature of his sculptures, encapsulated notably in a sequence he created within the Nineteen Fifties after being impressed throughout journeys to Greece, made his property a pure alternative for Celine artistic director Hedi Slimane when contemplating the subsequent focus for the Celine Bijoux d’Artistes Mission. The challenge, paying tribute to nice avant-garde artists, has to date collaborated with the estates of French sculptor César and American sculptor Louise Nevelon, translating their works into wearable artwork varieties in 2020 and 2022 respectively.
In 2024, it was the flip of Jean Arp, and third iteration of the challenge is an homage his work, Ptolémée II, a biomorphic form juxtaposing solidity with house. Gently curving, its oval type pays as a lot respect to the void because it does to the bronze, slicing a harmonious steadiness between the 2.
Examine Celine’s Jean Arp-inspired jewelry
Wild beauties: excessive jewelry dripping with drama
(Picture credit score: Images: Melanie + Ramon. Jewelry / author: Hannah Silver. Trend / set stylist: Lune Kuipers)
On the coronary heart of excessive jewelry collections lies a dedication to showcasing the rarest and most treasured gems, placing them in the very best gentle. For 2024’s new releases, high-jewellery homes zoned in on color, eschewing conventional pastels for a beneficiant rainbow of hues, from the muted and summary to the sensible and daring.
Learn concerning the excessive jewelry collections of 2024
‘It’s all the time a pleasure to shock’: inside Lagos-based high-jewellery home Akano Diamonds
(Picture credit score: Kadara Enyeasi)
‘Design and the rarity and high quality of gems are all the things to me. My love for diamonds stems from the sensation I get when I’m sporting them – certainly one of timeless magnificence, femininity and power,’ says Akunna Nwala-Akano, founding father of Akano Diamonds (previously often known as DEJ), the Lagos-based high-jewellery home, that attracts deeply from her cultural heritage and lifelong perception within the transformative energy of jewels.
Learn our interview with Akano Diamonds’ Akunna Nwala-Akano
‘Given hip-hop’s roots in New York, the prospect to inform this story on this metropolis may be very particular’
Hip-hop star Ghostface Killah along with his gold eagle armband
(Picture credit score: © Atsuko Tanaka, courtesy AMNH)
Hip-hop’s official fiftieth birthday was 11 August 2023. However the occasion just isn’t as a result of finish any time quickly. ‘Ice Chilly: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewellery’ runs on the American Museum of Pure Historical past in New York till 5 January 2025, and so there’s nonetheless time to affix in. Among the many outsized gold chains and diamond-studded pendants is a glitter ball of legendary names – The Infamous B.I.G., Jam Grasp Jay and Erykah Badu amongst them. However ‘Ice Chilly’ goals greater, going manner past brilliantly audacious designs to light up hip-hop jewelry as a part of a multi-layered trajectory of favor, politics and sociocultural developments.
Learn our Ice Chilly exhibition assessment
Venyx interprets Man Ray’s sensual symbols into surrealist jewelry
(Picture credit score: Venyx)
Man Ray’s affect endures – his offbeat silhouettes and surreal references encourage designers all through the world and his work continues to be honoured in exhibitions (corresponding to 2023’s present of Man Ray sculptures in New York). Eugenie Niarchos, founder and artistic director of jewelry model Venyx, is the newest designer to fall beneath his spell, creating a set centred across the artist’s sensual and surrealist symbols.
Learn extra and see Venyx’s Man Ray-inspired jewelry
Lugano’s versatile excessive jewelry items are too good to avoid wasting for particular events
Excessive jewelry can, by its nature, be just a little formal, a repute that one American model has been steadily shrugging off over the past 20 years. Established within the US in 2005 by Idit and Moti Ferder (featured within the Wallpaper* USA 400 information to artistic America), Lugano has been championing stunning supplies and unfussy silhouettes since its inception. At their atelier/workshop in Newport Seaside, California, the husband-and spouse duo give attention to creating distinctive, one-of-a-kind items that encapsulate a person.
Learn our interview and see extra Lugano excessive jewelry
(Picture credit score: Theresa Marx)
Jessica McCormack and the Haas Brothers’ playful jewelry
(Picture credit score: Jessica McCormack x Haas Brothers)
Jessica McCormack and the Haas Brothers carry a playful irreverence to superb jewelry, a philosophy they’ve stayed trustworthy to of their second collaboration (the primary was the Haas Brothers’ jewelry debut, in 2020).
‘This Too Shell Has’, a compact assortment of 5 items, nods to the aesthetic and heritage of all of the collaborators. The sensually formed designs reference the koru fern, a motif from McCormack’s native New Zealand, whereas the Haas Brothers’ outsized snail sculptures, Snails in Comparability, are a transparent inspiration.
Examine Jessica McCormack and the Haas Brothers’ jewelry
African jewelry designers marrying heritage with sharp design codes
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of the designer)
African jewelry designers are making certain the native trade is alive and effectively. On a continent with so many uncooked supplies and parts, and recognized for its export of gold and diamonds, the African jewelry market worth is rising. It’s due to the rising curiosity in and appreciation of Africa’s domestically produced luxurious objects, but in addition to a number of trade gamers who’re constantly on their recreation, attempting to get the market transferring – and that is very true of the jewelry designers.
Uncover African jewelry designers to look at
Alighieri marks ten years with ten jewelry classics
(Picture credit score: Alighieri)
For Rosh Mahtani, founder of jewelry model Alighieri, the corporate’s tenth anniversary is a major milestone – an opportunity to pause and look again, have a good time all the things the model has achieved to date, and cement core values. ‘Over the past ten years, there have been sure items which have held such very deep sentiments for me; as quickly as I have a look at them, I am instantly transported again to the place I used to be after I created them, how I felt, what I used to be going by way of,’ Mahtani tells us.
See Alighieri’s jewelry classics
Cora Sheibani celebrates surprising diamond cuts in a brand new jewelry assortment
(Picture credit score: Images: Neil Godwin at Future Studios for Wallpaper*. Artwork path: Sophie Gladstone)
‘I’ve simply all the time cherished jewelry, I believe it goes additional again than my very own recollections,’ says jewelry designer Cora Sheibani. Since launching her eponymous home in 2002, she has develop into recognized for her daring aesthetic, one that’s anchored in a life-long love of artwork, liberally seasoned with private narratives, and has items that persistently level to her profound respect for design, craftsmanship and the plethora of potentialities that gems possess. Together with her newest providing, ‘Sides and Varieties’, Sheibani has created a ‘assortment that may be very a lot for these individuals who like jewelry however are into design, who like materiality’, she says, and who, like her, suppose for themselves and ‘don’t observe developments’.
Learn the Cora Sheibani interview
Supply: Wallpaper