Autumn jewels and the jewelry exhibitions to see this season
Autumn jewels to wear as the leaves fall, Melanie Eddy on her retrospective in Bermuda, Castro at Carpenters, Michele Oka Doner and Elisabetta Cipriani, and what we’re looking forward to this winter.
The Autumn Jewellery Edit
The Abacus ring, by Kia Schwan
After years designing for luxury jewellery houses, the Swiss designer has finally launched her own brand. Drawing on a love of Miami Art Deco and the abstract art of Robert Delaunay, her collection is full of colour and joy. The customisable Abacus ring comes in a range of succulent hardstone shades, accented with precious gems.
Burn Anne Ashurpanipal ring by Sian Evans
Burn Anne agate is one of Scotland’s underrated riches and for Sian Evans, the natural swirls and earthy colours are a source of deep inspiration, which produced the Tanis collection. Using ancient lapidary technology, she cuts and polishes each stone, lead by the shapes and inclusions within, before carefully piercing and mounting it on recycled gold.
Earthshine necklace, by Clara Chehab
Made in ateliers in Beirut, Clara Chehab’s enchanting jewels blend polished and rough gems in joyous palettes. In the Earthshine necklace, garnets and diamonds combine to accentuate a central rough imperial topaz, in an empowering and feminine piece that spotlights Lebanese craftsmanship.
This precious leaf skeleton caught our eye at Melee the Show Paris last month, amongst designer Michele Scholnik’s many other delicate jewels. Handmade at her Venice Beach studio, her work brings the imprint of nature to the body through organic forms, negative space, and gemstones buried in gold.
Stone and Leaves gold earrings by Coline Assade
This French-Egyptian jeweller – and London East Ender by adoption – works from one of the coveted studios at Sarabande, the foundation and arts centre set up by Lee Alexander McQueen to support creative talent. Her fascination with nature and human behaviour blends with an exploration of femininity to produce original and unusual forms of adornment. The Stone and Leaves earrings fit to both sides or the lobe and can be worn long or short.
Melanie Eddy’s first retrospective opens at Bermuda National Gallery
At first glance, her striking geometric jewels might owe more to the urban landscape of her adoptive city of London. But as a new exhibition on the islands shows, her work owes more to her Bermudan home than you might at first think.
“My pieces are meditations on memories of Bermuda,” she says, referencing the triangle which forms the foundation of her jewels. The sails of the Bermuda rig, architecture of the archipelago and even the shadows created by the island sun all inform her multifaceted designs. The starting point is always the architectural sense of form, which has seen her create sculptural, minimalist silver and gold jewels that are instantly recognisable.
“This exhibition feels like a pivotal moment. It’s been a tremendously moving experience bringing this work back to Bermuda,” says Melanie. “Much of this work has never been shown in Bermuda nor been seen in person by my family and friends there… having it shown in a space traditionally dedicated to art is also very powerful”. The show also marks the launch of the Breakers collection, which explores her relationship with the sea and experience of grief after her uncle was lost at sea, through softer angles and gentle curves. “This work is about the swirling currents around Bermuda and how they shape both the island and us – the crest of rolling waves, the breaker reefs, breaking waves and ocean swells. It’s about the things that threaten to break us, the rules we break ourselves, and the things that crash and break upon us.”
More recently, she has begun adding gemstones, exploring her creative practice in a bold, new way. The shift came in 2020, when she was profiled as a Black British jeweller to watch by British Vogue, and selected to take part in the first Brilliant & Black exhibition at Sotheby's New York, co-curated by Melanie Grant. “It pushed my practice further than I ever thought possible. The work that came together for the showcase was a love letter to Bermuda and the cultural heritage that shaped me.” For the first show, she made three large faceted silver bangles inspired by jewellery worn by her grandmother, Myrtle Edness. For the second, Brilliant & Black: The Age of Enlightenment, she set sizeable amethysts and citrines into gold for the Palmetto ring, Bermudiana earrings and Loquat earrings.
We could almost feel the island breeze in the palms, and the heat of the sun on our faces.
Meditations on Form: Jewellery by Melanie Eddy is at Bermuda National Gallery, City Hall & Arts Centre in Hamilton, until May 2025.
Piece of the Month: Mellerio Jumbo Talisman
Maison Mellerio may be one of the world’s oldest jewellers, but that hasn’t stopped it innovating for over 400 years. As France’s last remaining independent jewellery house, Mellerio has existed since 1613 through 15 generations of craftspeople. Where once the house made jewellery for Marie-Antoinette and the Court of Versailles, now President and Artistic Director Laure-Isabelle Mellerio designs a more aesthetically inclusive offering for contemporary clients.
The house’s gem-set charms, cameos and medallions are made to fit their contemporary chains and include the super-sized Jumbo Talismans. At 68g, the Médaille Nuit Etoilée is magnificent in both scope and size. A constellation of sapphires, diamonds, spinels and opals is set into 18 carat white gold, against a swirl of stars and moons; a design which carries universal resonance across the ages.
Three pieces to see at the Castro NYC retrospective at Carpenters Workshop Gallery
A retrospective of the work of Terry Castro opened earlier this month, at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in London. As a tribute to his work as Castro NYC until his untimely death in 2022, the show also provides a few clues as to the direction in which his son, Sir King, will take the jewellery house in the future. Three pieces not to miss.
The Drip earrings
Like so much of Terry’s work, these elegant drop earrings are full of symbolism. Forked ruby tongues holding garnet-set freshwater pearls dart out of diamond cobra heads, representing rebirth and spiritual power.
The Terry Berry brooch
One of three pieces in the exhibition to have been completed by Sir King from his father’s sketches, the Terry Berry brooch is a gem-encrusted articulated bear with bezel-set rubies, gold flower nipples and solid gold joints. Sir King described the experience of finishing his father’s work, as “a bridge from him to me”.
The Falcon Crest pendant
Widely considered to be one of Terry’s masterpieces, Falcon Crest was shown at Sotheby’s Brilliant & Black: A Jewelry Renaissance exhibition in New York, in 2021. The central figure is a 19th century bisque porcelain doll set with coloured diamonds and pearls, with the wings of a mechanical owl. The piece was made in collaboration with master jewellers in Geneva and was inspired by patterns and symbolism found in artefacts from the civilisation of Benin.
Castro NYC Futurespective is at Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Ladbroke Hall, London, until January 11th, 2025.
Michele Oka Doner creates art jewellery collection with Elisabetta Cipriani
Over in New York, Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery is preparing to launch a collection of wearable art in collaboration with the acclaimed American artist, Michele Oka Doner. The Botanic Age centres on a time when plants were central to human development and draws on the artist’s lifelong exploration of nature in all its forms and deep connection to the natural world.
Comprising a series of brooches, an evolution of the artist’s Winter Branches series, the Talisman pendant, and the Mitosis box, the collection spotlights Oka Doner’s elegant, fluid designs, imbued with awe and respect for nature. Describing herself as a “lifetime hunter-gatherer,” the artist details how she engages with trees on forest walks and urban streets, as her “eyes follow the wonderful branching patterns. For years I have picked up small twigs. They became an unplanned collection detailing the genius of variety, growth and form in nature.”
The pieces are designed to come to life when worn, “engaging cathartically with our original connection to earth,” according to the Gallery. “I left the cast bronze twigs dark as the wood they once were, and old cut diamonds brought them to light and replicated dew, or a touch of frost, in a nod to their life in different seasons.”
In the face of ‘plant blindness’, or our current, post-industrial distance from nature, the artist hopes to use the collection to highlight the need for a new botanic age. “Artists have a moral responsibility to help foster a return to a connection that was severed by the Industrial Revolution,” says Oka Doner. “We have the capacity to create art that brings our audiences into the realm of wonder and magic. The natural world is embedded deep in the human psyche, artists can and will make it rise up again.”
The Botanic Age will launch at Salon Art + Design at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, November 7th-11th.
What’s On
In Paris, L’Escarbouche, the bookshop at the new L’Ecole des Arts Joailliers in the 9th has just opened and along with the research library and reading room upstairs, it’s a real treasure trove for jewellery fans… Esther de Beaucé at Galerie Mini Masterpieces is hosting a conversation with the Chinese artist Wang Keping, on how he transitions between large-scale sculpture and wearable art November 14th 9:30am… Timeless Jewels Salon is also coming up November 21st-24th – it’s at Hôtel de l’Industrie on Place Saint-Germain-des-Près, so ideally situated for a drink at the Deux Magots afterwards… In London, Trove is back at the Goldsmiths Centre and this year it’s all about rings… And Joy BC is teaming up with Les Enluminures again in New York, for Beyond Sight, an exhibition exploring the materiality of jewellery and how it stimulates our senses, in the Middle Ages and now.