Kong[Moderator]
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The Chopard Animal World Collection
Jun 20, 2010,09:12 AM
In just a few
decades, Chopard has become open to the world while remaining true to
its two core activities: watchmaking and jewellery. This post will
provide some snapshots of the laborious steps taken to create this
Chopard’s
extraordinary bestiary collection, which serves as yet another witness
to Chopard’s expertise in the field of
Haute Joaillerie, and as a measure of how far the company has come since
inception.
To celebrate Chopard’s 150 years, Caroline
Gruosi-Scheufele, Co-President and Artistic Director, has dreamed up
150 Haute Joaillerie creations that celebrate animals, a world barely
yet explored by the company. Such originality led to yet another
“first”: to date, the largest and most diverse collection
devoted to a single theme.
During a sleepless night, the idea of
this fantasy collection came to the Artistic Director. Fond of animals
in her personal life, and sensitive to animal issues in general, she
realised that nature and animals would be an excellent theme. Instead
of the usual depictions of animals
or birds, Chopard offers a whimsical and
lively colourful collection that matches Caroline
Gruosi-Scheufele’s vibrant personality and sometimes evokes the strange
and magical world of Douanier
Rousseau.
The company mobilised all its talent for this birthday
collection, drawing on its long experience to mix tradition, advanced
techniques and documented research, and taking its taste for excellence
and novelty to new heights. With help from the Haute Joaillerie
department designers, Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele poured over specialised
encyclopaedias and even consulted the Chinese calendar to come up with a
collection of animals that is original, aesthetically
pleasing and humorous. The result is an extraordinary collection of
beautiful, mysterious and dream-like animals which are represented in
the form of bracelets,
necklaces, brooches, earrings, rings and watches.
Blending the art of tradition with
innovation
The
creation of this anniversary collection called on everyone’s creativity,
sensitivity and expertise, qualities developed and honed in Chopard’s
workshops year after year, and gave rise to real feats of technical
skill and craftsmanship.
The first difficulty lay in researching
and selecting the materials and gems that would best simulate the
exuberance of colours found in nature and in the animal world dreamed up
by Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele.
Built around gemstones of exceptional
quality, of all shapes and sizes, the pieces of the Animal Planet
collection also feature more unexpected stones and materials, such as
quartz, kunzites, pearls, Paraiba tourmalines, moonstones, red gold,
titanium, and precious woods, for a “natural” effect of startling
realism.
Once the materials had been chosen, each piece had to be made with
patience, precision and attention to detail in order to harmoniously
combine the stones, metals and colours that would appear not merely as a
simple piece of jewellery but as a true miniature fresco.
To achieve
this goal, the jewellers pushed the limits of their skill by mixing
ancestral techniques such as lacquering, pearl weaving, and stone
carving with modern developments such as 3-D modelling and titanium
casting. Each animal to be made represented a new challenge for the
goldsmiths, rhodium-platers, chain-makers and other jewel setters.
Thanks to their exceptional command of the jewellery arts, Chopard’s
craftsmen made the most of the shapes, colours and materials to
successfully bring the animals to life by giving them expressions and
emotions and placing them in their natural settings: for example, the
koala hugs a tree branch, and the polar bear is stretched out on a very
realistic block of ice.
A sketch of the Polar Bear hugging a tree...
A finished piece of the cute Polar Bear Ring on Ice...
Another
jewel of aestheticism and technical skill is the necklace depicting
monkeys stealing fruits. In this
mischievous scene, two rubellite
chimpanzees are stretching out on vines of red gold to reach a bunch of
mangoes represented by a cluster of orange-red sapphires. The animals’
astoundingly realistic poses were skilfully reproduced by a sculptor.
The monkeys’ fur is magnificently re-created by very close jewelling of
brown and cognac diamonds –a task very deftly performed by the company’s
master stone setter.
The Frog with Crown ring is both an amusing
nod to fairy tales and a very detailed figure. Mounted on a ring of
white gold, a frog of emeralds and black diamonds seems ready to jump
out and offer up its tiny crown of yellow gold set with brilliants,
amongst which is a yellow diamond. Exceptional work by the designers and
jewellers has given the little animal’s large liquid eyes a touching
expression of melancholy.
A frog is also featured on a delightful
necklace of clever design. The animal, made in red gold set with pink
diamonds, is watching over its eggs, a cloud of small aquamarine
cabochons. The design of the water lilies that surround it required the
use of skilled and unorthodox jewellery techniques, such as the
application of lacquer in the bottom of the bowls representing the
aquatic plants. Drops of diamond and sapphire “water” placed here and
there add life to the scene.
The Turtle ring was designed around
its central stone, a magnificent 11.43-carat pear-cut brown diamond. The
brilliantly sparkling shell is set with 370 tiny champagne, cognac and
dark chestnut-brown diamonds. The subtly mixed shades perfectly
reproduce this calm turtle’s scales.
The Turtle Ring
With wake antennae and legs
stretched out, the bee brooch appears ready to gather pollen from a
beautiful flower. The body of this tiny animal is a miniscule mosaic of
yellow and black diamonds of varying sizes. The extreme fragility of its
translucid winds is simulated by a loose and irregular meshing of white
gold, enhanced by brilliant-cut diamonds. A homage to the queen of the
insects which reveals once again an assured taste for attention to
detail.
The Bee
With just as much work, the rabbit
bracelet brings once
again a fresh and humorous feature to the collection. This white gold
cuff, set with diamonds, shows these adorable rodents searching for
carrots. To make the piece lighter, the belly and ears of these mammals
are hollow and allow one to feel the smoothness of the skin and the
fragility of the chest. The vegetables have been skilfully represented
by pear shaped orange sapphires, oval shaped tourmalines and green
marquise tourmalines.
The Rabbit Bracelet
The seahorse earrings
represent a gracious
little cavalier of the sea with onyx eyes and a body adorned with
brilliant-cut diamonds. The unusual fish appears to ride in a shower of
micro-bubbles of air, represented by 108 rose-cut diamonds. A piece
truly delicate and poetic.
The Seahorse Earrings
Another virtuoso creation is
the
Sardines bracelet in diamonds and sapphires, which took nearly 200 hours
of labour and thousands of micro-welds; each fish had to be handled
individually. To create the illusion of a school of fish being carried
along by the current, every single sardine had to be placed with
incredible accuracy.
Leaving the depths of the ocean to join the
ice-floe one can discover a piece that defines once more the sensitivity
and extreme dexterity of the designer.
What could be more
endearing than this polar bear whose body holds a white gold ring?
Laying calmly, it has no fear of the cold with its fur of sparkling
diamonds. An onyx marks its nose while 2 small sapphires of 0,1 carats
evoke pleading eyes.
After the fairy tale of Prince Charming
turned into a frog, Chopard revisits that of birth with the Storks
earrings. In this composition, which appears as though it has come
straight out of a children’s picture book, the male stork, of white gold
set with black and white diamonds, carries in its beak a bundle made of
blue topaz, in which a baby boy is sleeping. The female, just as finely
cut, delivers a baby girl. This time, the infant’s wrap is represented
by a pink briolette-cut kunzite. As a mark of the extremely fine quality
of the jewellery, the backs of the earrings bear a fine gold honeycomb
weave.
Though the latest technology was used to create this
dazzling collection, as always it was the unrivalled skill of the
craftsmen that gave the models form and beauty. At Chopard, the deeply
moving splendour of Nature and the creative genius of Man have united to
give birth to something exceptional and mark a new marvel of Haute
Joaillerie. Happy Birthday Chopard !
This message has been edited by Kong on 2010-06-20 09:15:18