JEWELLERY
Robb Report BEST OF THE BEST
JEWELLERY PIECE OF THE YEAR
Boucheron
LEAVE IT TO the oldest jewellery house on Paris’s Place Vendome to put the freshest spin on high-end gems this past year. Creative director Claire Choisne stepped so far outside the confines of the craft that she was in uncharted territory. Imagine thousands of diamonds hovering around the neck, as if suspended in air.
That gravity-defying effect is delivered by the maison’s Nuage en Apesanteur (Weightless Cloud) necklace, which takes its cue from the millions of minute liquid droplets that form a cloud. Two years in the making, the statement piece began with an in-house technician using cotton to create the shape on a bust. An algorithm was then devised to enable jewellery engineers to arrange 4,108 diamonds, interspersed with glass beads and set in 18-carat white gold, on the tips of 10,000 tiny threads of ultra-light titanium.
The structure, however, delivers a hefty dose of avant-garde splendour. Few things more pointedly express the unbridled excess of that the free rein granted by CEO Helene Poulit-Duquesne was “magical” but also pressure-inducing: “When somebody says, ‘OK, do whatever you want and we will support you,’ it can be supercool, but it can also be frightening because you have no excuse.” She doesn’t need one.
