Boucheron leads the sea change in the world of high jewellery with its latest Carte Blanche collection – the Or Bleu, inspired by the beauty of Iceland’s waters in all its forms.
Still waters run deep. Boucheron’s latest Carte Blanche high jewellery collection is a deep dive into the element of water. The dark, unbridled beauty of Iceland’s inky black waters, specifically, served as a fluid, versatile muse for Claire Choisne, the maison’s trailblazing creative director, who saw in its depths a striking power and an arresting, mysterious beauty.
Choisne was given free rein in crafting an extraordinary collection that defies convention, from its most abstract imaginings right up to its full production. So inspired was the maison that no less than 26 high jewellery pieces were created in 14 chapters, going beyond the conventional in terms of design, innovation, materials and wearability.
The theme, Or Bleu, is an ode to water as memory, articulating this vital resource’s ability to metamorphose into myriad forms by way of the most breathtaking, radical yet natural creations. What is instantly palpable is how ambitious and visionary the collection is, astounding in the way the colour, texture, flow, reflections and transparency of water are captured.
The full expression of this element is explored in its solid and fluid states, with each piece recreated to evoke water’s many metaphors, from the cascade of waterfalls or the power of crashing waves, to the poetic and precise moments of a single water droplet creating gentle ripples in a calm lake.
It is an unusual collection, impossible to realise until now even as the maison has embraced the latest high-tech innovations such as 3D printing and simulation as well as the use of some extraordinary materials. At the same time, Boucheron stays reverent to age-old techniques and its archives, reviving some rare techniques that lend these pieces a timeless quality.
The collection is perfectly realised to the point that some pieces are almost indistinguishable from the real elements they portray – witness some of the still-life photographs they feature in. Take Cascade, for example. A spectacular necklace of white gold and diamonds, this transformable piece evokes the power and glory of a waterfall, which at 148cm is the longest in Boucheron’s history. The necklace is crafted to filament-fine perfection and paved with 1,816 diamonds of various sizes along its length to emulate the trail of a waterfall from afar. It can be worn in six different ways, being transformable into a necklace of five different possible lengths and a pair of earrings.
The crashing force of Icelandic waters is also given show-stopping due in a pair of shoulder brooches bearing the lightness of aluminium adorned with palladium in Eau Vive, presenting a novel way of wearing and showcasing this talking piece. Flots, too, is unique – a necktie brooch of cascading diamonds, like ribbons of flowing water, uniquely mounted on a rare chip setting to further lend to the illusion of invisibility.
Choisne was particularly taken by the arresting contrasts between white seafoam ebbing from the staggering beauty of black sand, producing a number of pieces that have a photo-realistic quality about them. Eau d’Encre is a cuff bracelet and ring series of black volcanic obsidian sculpted in 3D-simulated waves that recreate the wild, inky-black untameable sea and paved with diamonds set in white gold.
Other brilliant masterpieces include a necklace of delicate “ripples” from the Ondes chapter, formed from sculpted rock crystal. A total of 4,542 round-cut diamonds are set on this piece, lending it a dazzling translucence. Eau Forte, a bracelet decorated with ink black and white lacquer reliefs, is made possible through a complex technique of etching designs onto metal. Vague, a pair of asymmetrical diamond paved earrings, pays homage to Hokusai’s The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. Sculpted by hand using the painstaking art of lost-wax casting, the earrings transform into a brooch referencing a 1910 Boucheron tiara that can also be worn as a hairpiece.
Water in its solid, crystalline form inspires creations such as Iceberg, a necklace of sandblasted rock crystal that pays tribute to these majestic blocks. Iceland’s famous ice caves, meanwhile, are highlighted in Ciel de Glace, in the form of a cuff of white gold and sapphires in gradient hues of blue.
Stalactites, too, are studied in diamonds, Akoya pearls, even mother-of-pearl, are imagined flowing down the body in the Givre set consisting of a head jewel, pendant earring, shoulder jewel and ring. Mysterious ice floes are presented in Banquise as a set of rings and earrings fashioned from Grand Antique marble paved with diamonds and white gold.
Capturing water’s transcendent qualities, the collection’s pièce de résistance, Cristaux, is a graphic white gold necklace formed from 24 aquamarines mounted within rock crystal hexagons. Its centrepiece is a 5.06 ct. E VVS2 diamond that detaches to transform into a ring.
As with other Carte Blanche collections, Or Bleu bears testament to the maison’s willingness to take risks and push boundaries. It is a remarkable collection befitting the most forward-thinking fans of high jewellery, an instant classic and certainly one for the maison’s archives.
Discover Boucheron’s Carte Blance Or Bleu collection here.
(Images: Boucheron)
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