These women who shaped jewelry to their vision
There were quite a few monographs devoted here to Suzanne Belperron, there to Loulou de la Falaise and of course quite a few writings on Gabrielle Chanel. But nothing that brings together in a single book the contribution, over a century, of women to the history of jewelry and jewellery. “Digging into the question, I even literally discovered the essential role played by Renée Puissant, explains Pauline Castellani, journalist, historian by training and author of Libres & Créantes which has just been published by Editions de La Martinière. Yet it was under his artistic direction that appeared what is still a reference at Van Cleef & Arpels. We're talking about the legendary Mysterious Serti, the Zip necklace or the emblematic Cadenas watch… Nothing less.
The work invites in its pages nine women who have, in various registers (fashion, fine jewelry, art, design...), various materials (bronze, papier-mâché, diamonds...), different decades (the 1930s, the seventies, the 21st century…), followed their intuition and their sensitivity, defended their vision despite aesthetic and ideological shackles to the point of imposing another way of making and wearing jewellery.
We fall from the clouds in front of Elsa Triolet
If the photos of certain pieces can drive amateurs and neophytes crazy – like the Menotte bracelet in gold, amethysts and citrines from 1939, created by Jeanne Toussaint for Cartier or the multicolored necklace in talosel by Line Vautrin, a material that she invented and “ shapes like bronze” – the patiently assembled portraits give flesh (and style) to these marvelous stories into which we dive with a certain pleasure. We leaf through, we linger, we admire, we didn't know...
If we are delighted to find Elsa Peretti, the designer who died in March, at the heart of the plot of the Halston mini-series on Netflix, we are flabbergasted in front of Elsa Triolet. The first woman to receive the Goncourt Prize, in 1945, created exceptional jewelry collections between 1929 and 1932 for fashion designers of the time. And it is his poet lover, Louis Aragon in person, who goes under the name of Mr. Triolet, with a briefcase filled with the creations of his muse, to play the "VRP VRP" with fashion houses and buyers of the big British and American stores…
At home, no gold, silver or platinum, but glass beads, pressed paper and, “more surprisingly, writes Pauline Castellani, cotillion balls and cotton beads, leather, straw blond, stone plaques and even woven horsehair” that she mounts in necklaces of a rare poetry.
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At the antipodes, we find the precious madness of Victoire de Castellane at Dior or the threatening declarations of Gabrielle Chanel, who made "false more beautiful than the real" and who said, in 1962, in Elle: "My jewels, I drew all of them myself. Better ! I take blocks of wax, and I combine, I embed each stone in one by one, I judge the effect, I have a lot of fun! If I had the time, I wouldn't even need someone else to mount them, I know as well as a jeweler. It is and certainly has not always been easy to work with these whimsical and visionary personalities, but rubbing shoulders with them, there, over the pages, what a richness.
Free & creative. They invented modern jewelry, by Pauline Castellani, Editions La Martinière, 192 pages, €29.90. Use a Fossil promo code to benefit from promotions on watcheshttps://www.lemonde.fr/codespromo/fossil
Caroline Rousseau
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