Kyle Roderick’s EYE ON: Gannon Brousseau, COUTURE Show Director
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Festival de Cannes Jewelry Report
Most of us know that the annual Cannes Film Festival is the world’s premiere film fiesta. Yet Cannes is an equally prestigious showcase for high luxury jewelry that influences the global jewelry industry, style reporters and of course, consumers. With distinguished actresses and gorgeous supermodels draped in the latest high jewelry from leading international luxe…
Mikaara Resplendent
New Zealand Maori artist, poet, seer, grandfather and father Mikaara Kirkwood is a peacock par excellence. Here Mikaara wears antique sterling silver bracelets, marcasite, gold and sterling rings, plus a sterling earring in one ear. For good measure, my most magical friend and advisor wears a bone mere tucked into his waist. Carved into a teardrop shape, the mere is a traditional Maori weapon for hand-to-hand combat. Because Mikaara is a peacemaking peacock, he wears the mere more for adornment than for any other purpose.
Shirin Neshat
Iranian-born, New York-based visual artist Shirin Neshat in golden cylindrical earrings and trademark dramatic eye make-up.
Vanessa Traina
Stylist Vanessa Traina crowned in sleek and gleaming chic outside a Givenchy show circa 2009. photo by Hanneli Mustaparta
Vanessa Traina
Stylist Vanessa Traina adorned in haute luxe chain cuffs from Gaia Repossi’s Forçat Collection, presented at the Louvres’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Museum of Decorative Arts) in July 2012. Traina served as Repossi’s muse for this poetic and priceless suite of jewels. Traina is standing in the Art Nouveau Salon in the Louvre’s West Wing.
Gaia Repossi
Gaia Repossi, Creative Director of her family’s heritage jewelry house, premiered her limited edition collection of haute luxe jewels called the Forçat collection, (la collection Forçat de Gaia Repossi), at a special evening presentation on July 4, 2012, in the Museum of Decorative Arts in the west wing of Paris’s Louvre Museum. here Repose wears the chain mail vest of intricately woven chains that covers both the front and back like medieval armor.
Stephen Webster: An Appreciation of his Lady Stardust Collection
Throughout jewelry history, the best high luxury jewels have embodied cultural and historical references, attitudes and emotions. In the 20th and 21st century, Stephen Webster’s carefully conceptualized collections have drawn inspiration from 19th century science literature, rock’n’roll; punk and his native British culture. (Note: his website is www.stephenwebster.com – If you are attending the COUTURE…
Maharajah Bhupendra Singh of Patiala
Meet the Maharajah who commissioned the most lavish diamond necklace in history! Here, Maharajah Bhupendra Singh of Patiala embodies Sikh chic in a glamorous pile-up of pearl necklaces, but in 1928, this Punjabi prince ordered a ceremonial bib necklace from Cartier comprised of several thousand carats of glorious diamonds. Scroll down one image to view Bhupendra’s stupendous son Yadavindra draped in this epic piece of jewelry art and history.
Maharajah of Patiala
Image courtesy Cartier ©
Maharajah of Patiala
In 1928, Cartier produced a platinum and diamond ceremonial bib necklace for Bhupinder Singh, Maharajah of Patiala. Pictured above, this majestic necklace is worn by the Punjabi potentate’s son, Sir Yadavindra Singh. The bejeweled bib contained 2,930 diamonds, two large Burmese rubies, and the yellow De Beers diamond, which at 234.69 carats, is the world’s seventh largest diamond. All totaled, this necklace contains nearly 1,000 carats. (In 2014, I studied this jewel at the Cartier exhibit in Paris’s Grand Palais: what scintillating stones, and what superb design, gem-cutting and gem-setting!)