Something’s in the air lately in jewellery design—or in the water, rather. For millennia, we’ve looked above and below to wonder about our place in the world. Yet for all the discoveries, very little continues to elude, fascinate and inspire like the ocean. The vast seas—they cover significantly more area on our planet than land, mind you—have shaped and defined cultures, trade and history. The siren song of the seas is as hypnotic as it is varied, as we are seeing being played out in several recent collections of jewellery inspired by the sea.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventure novel Treasure Island was the inspiration and namesake behind Van Cleef & Arpels’s newest range of high jewellery. It’s perhaps the maison’s most playful collection in years, with nods to a pirate adventure and a search for hidden treasure. It gleefully takes on board these childlike symbols and motifs, and turns it on its head with the maison’s signature grace and elegance.
Consider the Coquillage Mystérieux seashell clip, which is arranged with mystery-set buffed top square rubies, round and baguette-cut white diamonds, and pink diamonds. On the reverse, a charming secret that toys with the house’s classical ballerina and fairy motifs: a nereid, perched atop a cultured pearl, hoisting an emerald.
The ocean can certainly play to the emotions of jewellers and designers. Take the designs of China-born, Spain-based jewellery artist Wallis Hong, whose pieces are sculptural, dreamlike and have an aquatic quality even when they aren’t inspired by the sea. He describes his first design, the Eternal Butterfly, as a “waterdrop butterfly” that has burst out of a cave with droplets cascading off its form. When I question him about this consistency in design—which is most pronounced in the way he sculpts blue titanium into organic shapes—he explains that the idea is more universal, to evoke emotions and spark imaginations, not taxonomic literalism. “Some viewers might feel the inspiration comes from water,” he says, while “others may sense influences from the sky or the universe”.
Hong tells me that recent designs, such as the Thorn Shells earrings, were inspired by his first trips to the Spanish islands of Ibiza and Formentera. “There, I discovered the natural forms of conches on the beaches and explored the vibrant underwater ecosystems teeming with diverse marine life.”
The universality and critical nature of water has also fascinated Claire Choisne, the brilliant creative director of Boucheron, in her Or Bleu collection of high jewellery. The range of 26 jewels is dedicated to water in its myriad forms: coursing waterfalls, concentric waves on a surface caused by a drop, sea foam washing up on sand, the crystalline translucency of icebergs, among many more.
The collection’s most modern idea might also be its most direct. The Eau Vive pair of shoulder brooches imagine Icelandic waves crashing against the contours of a body. Boucheron used 3D software to simulate the movements of water. After a beautiful ‘crash’ was determined, it was then sculpted from a single block of aluminium, chosen for lightness, and mirrored to create a symmetrical pair. Diamonds are set into the aluminium—a feat of craftsmanship as the metal is more challenging to work with in jewellery than traditional gold—and then plated in palladium for an intense shine. What a thought: to wear the waves of the sea on one’s shoulders.
Vast and powerful yet serene and constant; the beauty of endless horizons versus the uncaring danger of the unknown. Varied perspectives from different cultures and peoples can make the sea endlessly fascinating. Take the Sicilian jeweller Massimo Izzo, who crafts his jewels of the sea with an unmistakably Mediterranean lushness and hedonism. The lifelike curves of his octopuses, seahorses and starfishes have an almost juicy, bursting quality to them.
Contrast that with how the Japanese might view the sea. For an island nation that we get the term ‘tsunami’ from, it is an entity of destructive power. Katsushika Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa’, one of Japan’s most famous artworks, inspired the latest Romance de l’art nouveau collection by Simone Jewels. A combination of art nouveau design and Hokusai’s artistry, the line celebrates an interplay of chaos and serenity. Diamonds set onto white gold waves almost seem to crest and rise off a bed of chalcedony as water. And in their forms, you instantly recognise a view of the sea from the East.
For proof, though, that this cresting wave of aquatic designs is no passing trend, consider that Tiffany & Co. has selected Sea of Wonder as the theme of its Blue Book high jewellery collection for 2025. The first chapter for spring, which debuted in late April at the brand’s Landmark flagship in New York, hinges heavily on the marine designs of Jean Schlumberger interpreted by Nathalie Verdeille, the house’s chief artistic officer of jewellery and high jewellery. Each piece, she says, is an invitation to “embark on a journey through uncharted realms of the deep sea”. Figurative at times, but just as equally bold, ornate and fantastical at others, these underwater jewels are an expression of human curiosity and creativity.
The May 2025 ‘Sonder’ issue of Vogue Singapore is available online and on newsstands.
