24 Aug 2021
One year after the renovation of the hôtel particulier at 12 Vendôme, the new Torsade de Chaumet High Jewellery collection celebrates this historic address. A tribute to the legendary square on which the Maison was the first jeweller to open in 1812, these virtuoso creations are inspired by the sweep of the frieze wrapping the Vendôme Column to offer a modern revisiting and fresh energising of the twist (torsade in French), a classic Chaumet signifier.
While honouring the history of the Maison, this anniversary collection is also an ode to movement and to life.
Like a series of snapshots, the pieces in the collection achieve the feat of fixing the liveliness of movement through gold and stones.
Torsade de Chaumet offers pieces that are both light and bold, contemporary and timeless. In white jewels, it highlights each creation’s radiance and line. Embracing colour, it also comes in duos of diamonds and sapphires, rubies or emeralds. Alternately entwined or suspended, punctuating the jewel with regularity or whimsically sprinkled, partially revealed or majestically elevated, the centre stones are highlighted by the movement of the twist.
It is an exercise in style illuminating the art of the line which has always distinguished Chaumet’s naturalistic creations, infusing the jewels with life- ears of wheat quivering in the wind, birds caught in flight. More spontaneous than ever, this virtuosity is allied with the endless possibilities offered by a dynamic twist, a new variation invented with each piece.
Interlacing that takes shape and unravels, graceful coils, spirals that stretch or relax... This versatile twist gives free rein to the interplay of symbols and interpretations that defines the richness of Chaumet jewellery. It poetically suggests the ceaseless movement of life or the dynamic of love. A way, in turn, of evoking the extraordinary love story of Napoléon and Joséphine, as the Maison, with its history as an imperial jeweller, celebrates the bicentenary of the Emperor’s death.
Susceptible to inciting emotion, these precious gems were selected one by one for their extraordinary aura. This indefinable alchemy takes into account the intensity and the homogeneity of the colour, the perfection of the cut and polish, but also that indefinable feeling one gets when looking at or wearing a stone.
As the signature Chaumet jewel, a tiara captures the grace of interlacing sweeping around a curved line of diamonds. A creation that seems to defy gravity and highlights the virtuosity of the Maison’s High Jewellery workshop, balancing the art of lightness with miraculous suspension.
On a necklace and a bracelet, a dynamic twist stretches and relaxes asymmetrically to accentuate its solid and slender lines. This same energy can be found on a ring adorned with a spiral capturing the movement of a spring. A tribute to the tradition of Chaumet time-telling jewellery, this twist also weaves across the bracelet and around the fully pavé miniature dial of a precious watch.
Multiplying the possibilities of parures, the twist graces a perfectly symmetrical second tiara, ideal for combining with pieces that celebrate spontaneity and naturalness: a necklace inspired by the spectacular negligee version made for the Maharaja of Indore, along with rings and both stud and pendant earrings.
As a tribute to blue, the Maison’s emblematic colour, cushion-cut Ceylon sapphires punctuate a twist of diamonds. In a modern revisiting of the Chaumet art of colour, they provide a subtle palette on a torque necklace. In monochrome on two rings and a bracelet, sapphires in a bright and cheerful forget-me-not shade of blue peek out from beneath the volumes of a spiral or radiate between the segments of the twist lightly holding them.
As majestic centre stones on rings and earrings, the intense red of Mozambique rubies brings warmth to this parure. Perfectly paired, they continue the movement of an asymmetrical twist on a spectacular sautoir and emphasize the fall of a negligee necklace. They also captivate as a pair of rings, on which they appear to bloom in colour, enclosed between twists of almost organic whorls.
A bright and vibrant Colombian emerald crowns the harmonious twist on a diamond tiara. This creation is echoed in a pair of stud earrings and a ring, in which the luminous and perfectly matched emeralds seem to be held in the coil of a ribbon of diamonds.
Available as Precious Jewellery, the Torsade de Chaumet collection is a contemporary offering in which the graphic interlacing of a brooch seems to float over a lapel and a spiral of diamonds hugs the edge of the ear. Pieces are conceived to be easily mixed with a ball ring and an articulated bracelet featuring a harmonious and regular twist, or with a negligee necklace.
