THE BIG IDEA Mining the Past
The practice of reworking old themes is a familiar concept at the world’s best jewelry houses, but this year designers revised the legacies and dynasties of kingdoms past for today’s increasingly relaxed but no less lavish aesthetic. Jewelers took hefty proportions and antique settings and modernized them, incorporating colorful gems for a fresh perspective and, in one case, using materials, borrowed from the ancient world, never before seen in high jewelry.
Both Boucheron and Santi by Krishna Choudhary delivered spectacular pieces inspired by the ornate jewelry of the maharajahs. Claire Choisne, Boucheron’s creative director, reimagined archival designs from the s largest special order in its 164-year history, which was placed by the Maharajah of Patiala in 1928. Choisne contrived the appearance of lightness by designing the New Maharajahs collection using only white diamonds, rock crystal and pearls, save for a single masterpiece necklace executed with a splash of emeralds. The extravagant platinum parure is set with nine Colombian emeralds totaling almost 39 carats surrounded by white diamonds and rock crystal. Meanwhile, Choudhary, a 10th-generation jeweler whose family has been crafting showstoppers for Indian royalty for centuries, whipped up creations using motifs found in his ancestral trove of rare antique jewels at Royal Gems & Arts, his family’s business in Jaipur, India. Dual three-carat pear-shaped diamonds highlight a pair of titanium earrings fashioned in the shape of poppy flowers, for example, in a design modeled
