Jewels are best seen on the body. But what if, Claire Choisne of Boucheron posits, they could be just as beautiful on a mantle? The frankly genius creative director of the Parisian high jewellery maison debuted a novel and groundbreaking collection this year that answers the question, and then some. In Carte Blanche: Impermanence, Boucheron rolls out six sets of high jewels, made of 28 pieces total, designed as finished, discrete ikebana compositions.
The creative and narrative impetus of the collection is an elegant but perhaps dire one. Choisne shared with Vogue Singapore via email that her desire was “to address a societal message by showcasing the disappearance of nature through a countdown”. Composition Nº6 is wrought in pure white, bright and full, and consequently Composition Nº1 is wreathed in black—Vantablack, in fact, which is the blackest substance in existence that absorbs 99.965 percent of visible light.
“I’ve sought to capture the beauty of nature before it vanishes,” she explains. “The collection is an ode to that fragile instant that I wanted to crystallise for eternity.” This tension between jewellery’s enduring quality and the ephemeral nature of, well, life itself is not new to Choisne. In 2018, Boucheron created a line of immaculately preserved flower rings by stabilising actual petals and mounting them on titanium. Just last year, her high jewellery captured the states, movements, forces and clarity of Icelandic water. “What fascinates me is how jewellery, by nature a lasting and precious piece of art, can capture something fleeting—a moment, an emotion, a natural phenomenon.”
The collection is constructed around these ikebana parures, each of which comes with its own specially designed vase and base so they exist not just as jewels to be worn, but jewels to be displayed. “I wanted to stay true to the Japanese tradition of ikebana, so it was essential that the plants be arranged in vases,” says Choisne. “Impermanence is conceived not only as a high jewellery collection, but also as six art objects that can be contemplated as such.” The vases, she adds, enhance the beauty of the ‘plant’ jewels. Each composition includes one crafted from different materials like borosilicate glass, white gold or black sand, that are chosen to reflect each composition’s aesthetic intent.
Presentation aside, the house has become best known for left-field, boundary-pushing savoir-faire. Techniques that are so modern it might surprise you to know that Boucheron is a heritage jeweller with over a century and a half of history. Choisne names two in this collection that push the envelope.
The first is a method of setting diamonds called sertissage couture, roughly meaning a sewn setting. In the fifth composition, there is a pair of thistle jewels created from plant-based resin using ultra-high-resolution 3D printing—a first in high jewellery. The result is thistle flowers with thorns and prickly leaves that are, says Choisne, “astonishingly lifelike” and which are “so faithfully rendered that one might expect to get pricked”. The impressive fidelity, however, gave the house’s artisans a new challenge: with no metal structure, it would be almost impossible to securely set diamonds into the bloom. The solution is the newly created sertissage couture, where individual diamonds are set on bezels, then strung together into cell-like alveoli holes on the thistle flowers and quite literally sewn into place. There are over 600 diamonds on the large thistle head, and over 200 on the small one.
The second feat of craftsmanship is the use of Vantablack in Composition Nº1. “I wanted to make light disappear,” Choisne explains—a nonchalant bit of understatement. “The flowers bloom in a darkness that almost seems to coalesce into tangible form, as if black were becoming matter, curving along every contour and petal.” Here’s how it works. The poppy blossoms are made of matte black titanium petals. Each is hand-etched to create lifelike veining and is coated on the inside with Vantablack. Instead of jewels polished to reflect light and dazzle, these creations literally absorb light—staring into it gives one the feeling of consuming nothingness. It’s dazzling in its difference.
And while Impermanence might sound highly cerebral and inert, each composition’s constituent jewels can be worn. In fact, Choisne has subtly dialled up Boucheron’s talent for versatile multi-wear designs. A brooch can transform from something that is pinned onto clothing, into a jewel piece for the hair, a jewel to be worn crossbody or as a headband. “I want to symbolically show the vitality of nature on the body,” she offers as explanation. And when asked if she felt finished with dressing the body, now that she’s exploring jewels as objets d’art, Choisne answers with a note of optimism: “But in any case, I will never feel limited or finished with the body. High jewellery has endless possibilities when you are guided by creativity!”
The October ‘Kinship’ issue of Vogue Singapore is available online and on newsstands.
