The “Kak Potratit” magazine sums up the impressions of the Basel World 2008 and Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie and points to the basic trends in jewelry design of the current year. As it was already said earlier, there was no homophonic fashion theme this year, the edition says. The trends of the previous years (pearls, white diamonds, and pink gold) were organically inscribed into the available jewelry palette. The most frequently encountered theme-refrain in many collections was the circle: a voluminous ball, a carved sphere, or a flat circumference containing something inside and most often arabesques. In the absence of an obvious favorite, the floristic theme was conspicuous among other tendencies – precious flowers of every hue and cry were “growing” at Chopard, Faberge, Palmiero, Di Modolo, Stefan Hafner, Picchiotti, and Mimi. The fauna theme was only emerging in fragments. Skulls were virtually gone – in Stephen Webster’s cuff links and men’s pendants skulls were replaced by Dracula, Frankenstein, Beowulf and even Yeti.
Many brands preserve singularity in their collections. Thus, Spanish jewelry house Carrerra у Carrera turned to corrida traditions – their Ruedo and Pacadoble collections were inspired by torero apparels. Stephen Webster was also loyal to his gothic roots: bats, griffons, moths and small spiders in the Fly by Night Collection looked appallingly attractive. Brazilian brand Н.Stern went in for ancient Greek and Celtic ornaments producing the Celtic Dunes wicker bracelets and Bliss rings shaped as leaflets studded with brown diamonds.
Enviable variety was observed in materials used to manufacture the adornments. Thus, along with the three major shades of gold, nielloed gold was rather often encountered this season in jewelry made by Pasquale Bruni, Stephen Webster and Luca Carati. The range of semi-precious stones used by jewelers was notably expanded. The Baroque Collection produced by Mikimoto has a very rare tourmaline, while Tamara Comoli featured no less rare Paraiba tourmalines from Africa. The Sisi Collection contains an obsidian gemstone of volcanic origin with white-grey embedments, while Bon Ton jewelry pieces feature nephrite and jade. The hues of soloing semi-precious stones were coming ever closer to the natural shades of women’s skin. There was a fancy nuance – graduation of colors expressed, for instance, in smooth transition from white diamonds to yellow, vinous and finally black diamonds, as in the Fire Collection by Palmiero.
Jewelry pieces have long ceased to be static – they have many moving and detachable elements. Now the setting is more and more often fixed at several levels to produce more dynamics and fire. Ring stones are now fixed in chatons (separate footings) to stress their beauty and cut to their maximum. As for the most fashionable thing, during this season it were all kinds of chains, the “Kak Potratit” writes. Chains were made even by those brands, which had never been noticed in this business: Faberge came out with sautoirs, while Pasquale Bruni produced their first chain named Cleo.
So the main result of the fairs was in diversity of styles, materials, techniques and methods, the publication believed. And if we take into account that during the recent year Moscow saw jewelry coming from Harry Winston, De Beers and Leviev, the choice range is turning out to be not so simple and hence more attractive.
Internet portal style.rbc.ru points out some jewelry designers, who addressed mythological stories. Heroes of legends, nymphs and gods have inspired jewelry collections of many famous jewelry brands. Mythology became a real treasury for designers, who were not averse to absolutely new interpretations of the legendary incidents in the life of Ancient Greece and Rome and their heavenly Olympus.
Phaedra of Seneca’s namesake tragedy has inspired as many as two jewelry collections - Versace and Io Si; nymph Calypso has prompted collections produced by Spanish jewelry company Prologue and already known Versace; and Ariadne has enlivened adornments made by Italian company Orlando Orlandini. One of the most romantic and fantastic episodes of the ancient mythology –Venus’ birth of the sea foam – was captured in the adornments of premiere jewelry house Stefan Hafner. The most reverent worshiper of antique mythology was jewelry house Tagliamonte of Vicenza, the Internet edition says.
Although pearls are never going out of fashion, it may be said that lately both the Russian and foreign mass media dedicated quite a few reports and allusions to these gemstones. Major designer trends include intensive use of variously colored pearls, very often in combination with each other or befriended with diamonds and other gemstones.
