PARIS — Gold and diamonds may be what Boucheron is best known for, but textiles are where it all started.
While researching for her annual “Histoire de Style” January collection, creative director Claire Choisne alighted on an oft-overlooked detail: founder Frédéric Boucheron’s father was a master draper.
This connection became the springboard for “The Power of Couture,” the 24-piece high jewelry collection the Place Vendôme jeweler is presenting during Paris Couture Week.
“Couture has always been part of the Boucheron vocabulary, in the essence of its creations,” said Choisne. Bows, knits and pompoms are aplenty in the archive.
And there’s no shortage of textile-inspired designs, from scarf-like adornments woven with pearls and diamonds and a diamond lace necklace from the 1870s to a 1958 knitted ribbon necklace. More recently, grosgrain ribbon is one of the motifs of its bestselling fine jewelry line Quatre.
All this made Choisne want to address her own long-standing preconceptions about couture as “too frilly, too girly” and explore it — minus the fuss.
To avoid that pitfall, the creative director reached instead for the trappings of ceremonial outfits, be they royal regalia or military pageantry.
Take the getups of the late Queen Elizabeth II, a recurring reference for Choisne. “When you look closely, they have a profusion of couture elements — buttons, embroideries, collars — that could be stiff or fussy,” she pointed out. “But taken one by one, they’re sophisticated.”
To temper their baroque site, she went for a monochromatic palette of white gold, white diamonds and rock crystal.
Though such regalia skews male in the collective imagination, don’t see this as a bid to appeal to a male client.
Treated from the angle of ceremonial dress, Choisne felt these high jewelry pieces are a reminder of what a couture client is looking for: looking at their peak.
“I decided to deconstruct symbols of power to reappropriate them, because these elements have the power to bring this strength. They’re not just cute or ornamental,” she said. “The collection is about creating your own style and being empowered thanks to couture.”
It also meshed with her realization that the more it goes on, the more she doesn’t think of jewelry alone. “Pieces are always a composition with clothes,” she said.
So rather than a succession of sets, Choisne imagined the 24 pieces as “a precious kit” meant to turn an outfit into one’s own ceremonial attire — whatever that occasion might be.
There are a pair of flexible fern brooches modeled after embroideries; a high-neck lace collar that splits into two different ones; another that looks like a row of medals; a necklace that turns into a braided brooch and bracelet; shoulder ornaments that turn out to be cuffs.
Not to mention the 15 rock crystal-and-diamond buttons that can be just as easily worn as pins or in the hair.
“The difficulty in crafting this collection was to bring the characteristics of fabric to rigid gold and stones,” she said.
Take grosgrain ribbon. The Médailles, or medals, collar necklace and its 15 pendants took up to 2,230 hours of work to shape 15 crystal blocks to mimick its ribbed texture but also the way it folds into a bow, not to mention carving the other motifs and gem-setting the outline of each element.
Among the most challenging pieces is also the Tricot set, centered around a chevon-patterned knit collar. Some 1,070 hours were needed to create this five-strand choker of individually sand-blasted rock crystal elements linked on nitinol cables, finished with a bejeweled button featuring a 2-carat round diamond accent.
“When I think of couture, I think of suppleness,” she said. “The idea of pushing that trait and creating the illusion of something that is physically impossible was appealing.”
Building flexibility into her designs, in particular the ferns that can conform to the shoulder or follow curves when pinned at the waist also played into Choisne’s desire to see her pieces work overtime.
“It’s important for me that these pieces are worn often,” she insisted, a message she’s been distilling through her biannual offerings since she arrived in 2011.
“What I’m interested in is what people will do with it,” said Choisne. “Have fun with it.”
That opportunity will come fast: after the conclusion of Paris Couture Week, “The Power of Couture” is slated to travel through Asia, with stops in Taipei in March and Tokyo in April already in the diary.
Lauding the “personal, resolutely contemporary touch” Choisne gave to the house’s couture heritage and the regalia of its historic royal customers, Boucheron chief executive officer Hélène Poulit-Duquesne reminded that the inventive offer of the brand is a contributing factor in the past few years to the growth the company, which is owned by French luxury group Kering.
With Choisne pushing the know-how of its ateliers, Poulit-Duquesne expects it to further cement “the most styling and cutting-edge French high jewelry maison,” she told WWD.
The jeweler recently acquired a specialized workshop of more than 60 artisans in Paris, as a way to reinforce its existing high jewelry production capacity.
“One of the current issues on the market is the global shortage of production capacities, particularly in [this segment],” the executive said. “This acquisition writes a new chapter in the history of the maison, enabling us to meet the increasing demand of our clients while maintaining the excellence of our craftsmanship.”
