A Little Glitz and Glam: Luxury Jewelers and Wedding Bands Inspired by Them
Jewelry is one of those amazing things in life that almost every woman likes. I would venture to guess that most don’t love it as much as I do, but I would reckon that most women enjoy jewelry. Jewelry can run the gamut: it can be the most indulgent luxury you’ll ever experience, or it can be the pony-beads-on-a-pipecleaner bracelet your preschooler made you (I myself have two of these fine baubles). Either way, jewelry captures the imagination and is a creative outlet for the designer. Jewelry is an incredible artistic expression, not just because it is truly art, but also because it is art that you can wear every day. I appreciate a good impressionist painting (Renoir is my favorite impressionist painter) as much as the next liberal arts college graduate, but I can’t carry Bal du Moulin de la Galette (Renoir’s most famous painting, housed at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris) around with me. But I can wear jewelry. And just like the best impressionist paintings, jewelry also tells a story.
Each diamond, each pearl, each karat of gold has a history, a beginning, an origin. But in order for us all to be part of the story, a designer needs to carefully craft the narrative, coaxing out the raw materials’ deepest secrets. This is a tremendously difficult task and there are some names in jewelry that have become synonymous with artful designing, impeccable taste, and flawless execution. Today we’ll take a look at a few of the best names in luxury jewelry. And then I’ll give you my top picks for wedding bands for him and wedding rings for her that capture the essence of the world’s top luxury jewelers.
Pearls aren’t always the first things that come to mind when someone brings up luxury jewelry, but that probably just means that they aren’t familiar with Mikimoto pearls. Luxury jewelry company Mikimoto was started by Kokichi Mikimoto in Japan in the late 1800s. After dropping out of school at the age of 13 to help support his family, he was transfixed with the pearl divers unloading their finds. Until Mikimoto, pearls were the happy byproduct of chance. Divers dove to varying depths to harvest oysters, which sometimes had pearls hidden in their shells. But Mikimoto patented numerous pearl culturing techniques and practices. While he was first known for mabé pearls, which are hemispherical, the company is now known for producing the finest cultured pearls in the world.
The successful commercial production and harvesting of spherical pearls took 12 years to perfect, and didn’t become commonplace until the 1920s. Unfortunately, due to Mikimoto’s and a handful of other peoples’ genius, pearl culturing became very popular in Japan. By 1935, the price of cultured pearls had been seriously compromised by oversupply in Japan. So Mikimoto, having always promoted his products internationally, turned his attentions overseas, particularly to the US and Europe. Mikimoto was under considerable fire by critics, calling into questions the authenticity of his pearls. Make no mistake: cultured pearls are REAL pearls. But instead of the oyster making them by chance, an irritant (like a little plastic bead or a little metal bead) are inserted into the oyster’s mantle. The oyster then creates a pearl sack around the foreign object and starts secreting layer after layer of nacre, which is the pearlescent substance that hardens around the bead, encapsulating it. Mikimoto’s style has long been defined by an attention to detail and utilizing nearly-forgotten skills and techniques, like plique-a-jour. Plique-a-jour is an enameling process that doesn’t use a metal back to flow the enamel on. It is incredibly difficult to do correctly and Mikimoto is known for crafting beautiful pieces in this style…with accent pearls, of course.
Moving beyond pearls, we come to Chopard. Chopard was started by Swiss watchmaker Louis-Ulysse Chopard. After his death in 1915, the watch company was passed down to his son and grandson. When his grandson passed in 1963 with no heirs to whom to pass the company, Chopard was sold to a German goldsmith. Under this careful stewarding, in 1976 the company started making watches with the signature Chopard floating diamond. In the 1980s, the business was expanded to include ladies’ jewelry. Chopard’s most immediately recognized style is of course that floating diamond. The Ice Bridge Wedding Band is a men’s diamond wedding ring with a baguette diamond floating between the two halves of the ring. Although not exactly like Chopard’s floating diamond, Ice Bridge captures the weightless feeling of being in love and the essence of beauty made famous by Chopard’s signature.
Anyone who read my love letter to Elizabeth Taylor’s jewelry box (and if you haven’t, you absolutely should. Click HERE to be amazed) should be well familiar with the name, “Cartier.” I hear it and I get excited. Cartier is synonymous with elegance, class, and an incredible attention to detail. Founded in Paris in 1847 by Louis-Francois Cartier, the company remained under family control until 1964. Now the company is a luxury goods conglomerate, having come far from its humble jeweler-to-the-stars-and-royalty beginnings (I hope you picked up on the sarcasm there; there is nothing humble about the talent and skill possessed and leveraged in order to become a luxury household name).
Cartier is famous for numerous things. Chief among them are the Bestiary items. Bestiary features jeweled animals, so intricate and ornate that it boggles the mind. For the Panthere brooch, made for the late Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson (who will be featured in an upcoming Style Icon blog; check back here in a few weeks). To get the level of detail, the artisans at Cartier developed a new technique to showcase the texture of the panther’s fur. Hair-thin wires of gold where crisscrossed in a hexagonal pattern, couching a stone in the space between. This gave the piece breathtaking dimension and movement. Another iconic Cartier piece is the Love Bracelet, which was modeled after chastity belts. The bracelets honestly come with a special screwdriver (which some hospitals in New York City purportedly keep on hand, due to the bracelet’s popularity, to remove them from patients in an emergency) that is supposed to be kept by your lover. The bracelet is meant to embody fidelity and faithfulness to your partner.
Speaking of fidelity and faithfulness, I think those are two things we can all agree are important traits in a husband. So for the man who represents those things, the Battle Arrow Wedding Band is the perfect choice. Battle Arrow echoes the same sort of austerity and simplicity, with strong geometric stylings, that the Love Bracelet is known for. And battle? Well, any great love story is worth fighting for. And this wedding ring for him exemplifies the good fight. For women’s wedding rings, the Double Beam Wedding Band is a strong option. This ring also comes in a Triple Beam style, which would be better suited to a man’s larger hands. Double Beam features two square shank bands of gold (in a variety of color combinations if you want to mix your metals) bolted together at the corners. The hardware connection to the Love Bracelet helps convey the same message.
Our last luxury jeweler for today is Bulgari. You may have seen in written “BVLGARI,” stylized in the classical Latin alphabet. While the company is Italian, it was founded by Greek jeweler Sotirios Boulgaris. He started the company in Rome in 1884. Bulgari was stewarded by family for decades. Boulgaris’s grandson, Gianni Bulgari is credited with overhauling the company and making it an internationally-known luxury brand. In 2011, Bulgari was bought by luxury brand conglomerate LVMH. If those initials seems familiar, you know your luxury brands. LVMH is the monolith that owns Louis Vuitton, among others. Bulgari’s style has often been characterized by bold, architectural pieces, often featuring large gold chains with interlocking steel. While Bulgari is also known for making liberal use of colored gemstones, sapphires are heavily favored (like Liz’s sugarloaf cabochon sapphire sautoir…I’m telling you, shameless plug aside, check out the Liz blog). To make a bold, architectural statement that would make Sotirios Boulgaris proud, I suggest two unisex wedding rings; although they both contain diamonds, this first one is probably better suited to women. The Sparkling Diamond Wave Wedding Band is a two-tone wedding ring with round diamonds interspersed throughout the undulating waves. It’s hypnotic. The Coral Wedding Ring conjures images of a coral reef: strong, alive, and natural. The diamond bands are less prominent in this ring than in Sparkling Diamond Wave. And with the wavy bands not broken up as much, it seems like a stronger, bolder statement, which is why I would recommend it more for a man, although they both can really be worn by either men or women.
Luxury jewelry isn’t just about the price tag. It’s about the feeling and the craftsmanship. Fortunately, you can get the feeling, style, and craftsmanship in other ways…without luxury price tag. But it is still incredible to look at what the great names in luxury jewelry have made. The skill, beauty, and wonderment of these pieces will live on for years and years to come. And you can capture the luxury inspiration in your wedding band from Timeless Wedding Bands.
Love and Luxury,
Rebecca
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