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which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cartier,

  • Thread starter Thread starter smitcompton
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smitcompton

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Hi,


I have been wondering who the next famous jeweler will be from our time into the future. I used to think it would be Leon Mege because so many on PS admired him so much. I seem to remember someone was going to do a book on his work.(coffeetable book).
Recently I read about an American in Paris named Rosenbloom, or Rosenberg who was in high favor for the honor of artist jeweler.
His work involved a lot of pave in interesting designs. Who do you think will be sought after and famous from our time?
Or is there anyone?


Annette
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

I know who I think is phenomenal - Van Craeynest and MC2. Calling their stuff "Exquisite" is modest praise. Only wish I owned something by either. 8)
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

That's a great question, smitcompton.

I don't know the answer, but it seems to me that it takes more than being a great designer - there would have to be someone who had a great entrepreneurial brain. Because the business side could always employ great designers, like Tiffany does with Elsa Peretti, Frank Gehry, etc.

When brands like Tiffany and Cartier started, I guess the marketplace was so small and uncrowded compared to today that perhaps it was much easier to build a customer base from that point.

There are many great designers around, from what I see on PS, but I don't see any of them attempting to build towering jewellery empires. They seem more interested in the intricacies of their craft - which you'd expect from wonderful jewellery designers.

I mean, brands like Tiffany made some bold moves in the early days, claiming to have bought up some of the French Crown Jewels and buying some of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, boxing it and selling it. I would imagine these actions were great for publicity, and I think I read somewhere that in the mid 19th century, New York was not a centre for luxury goods. If that's true, it would have been easy to stand out - and to be there when all the Gilded Age money came along!

I think building a brand like Cartier or Tiffany takes a great business brain with daring and flair and panache, and an uncanny ability to know what people want and to predict trends. People like that don't come along very often. Richard Branson springs to mind.

ETA: Oh, did you mean a jeweller alone who would become famous for his or her artistry? I read it as wondering which famous jewellery company would come from our time. I think I read it that way because of the Cartier reference.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

Smithcompton, you're thinking of JAR, Joel Arthur Rosenthal, who works in Paris. He makes individual pieces for each individual customer; he does not do collections or lines. Eliz. Taylor had several JAR pieces, as did Lily Safra, and countless other well-heeled types. He will be included in museum exhibits, no doubt. I like some of his work; others I find too strange. Here are a couple examples:

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_8435.jpg
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

JewelFreak|1375392753|3494806 said:
Smithcompton, you're thinking of JAR, Joel Arthur Rosenthal, who works in Paris. He makes individual pieces for each individual customer; he does not do collections or lines. Eliz. Taylor had several JAR pieces, as did Lily Safra, and countless other well-heeled types. He will be included in museum exhibits, no doubt. I like some of his work; others I find too strange. Here are a couple examples:
Click to expand...

I believe there is going to be a JAR exhibit at the Met in New York this Fall with around 200 to 300 pieces. Bergdorf is already preselling another book of his designs. I'm planning to come to New York just to see this exhibit. Although some (OK,most) of his designs are over the top- I am a huge fan of the jewels used in his designs and the creative use of gems!! His jewelry is already highly sought after on the secondary market at auctions from places like Sotheby's.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

I love JAR's stuff. He has very creative use of micropave.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

Smith1942 said:
When brands like Tiffany and Cartier started, I guess the marketplace was so small and uncrowded compared to today that perhaps it was much easier to build a customer base from that point.
Click to expand...

There was quite a number of incredibly skilled designers & jewelers in the late 19th & early 20th centuries: VC&A, Faberge, Mellerio, Bolin, Verdura, Chaumet, Boucheron, Bulgari, Noury-Mauboussin, Mouawad, Heyman Bros. addition to Cartier & Tiffany -- more that I can't think of offhand. The Heyman brothers, in fact, trained at Faberge & then moved to New York in the early 1900s -- they made some of the spectacular jewelry for Cartier for many years (may still, for all I know), and other major firms, finally beginning to sell direct to customers a few decades ago.

Things were different then: royalty & nobility (& emerging middle-class wealthy) had money to buy jewels & life was formal enough to wear them constantly. The market was larger. There's still plenty of wealth for spectacular pieces, but relatively fewer people buy them & very very few have great collections like the old ones, which have been largely broken up & re-sold.

It's an interesting question. Have to do some pondering. Jewelers making only fabulous, intricate pieces are necessarily smaller -- or have gone more mass market, like Tiffany & Cartier. Some of the wonderful old firms are still alive, but do they make the incredibly intricate & almost miraculous things they used to?

--- Laurie
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

I think JewelFreke summed it up so well. A part of me thinks there will never be another big jewelry house just because there is no need or demand like there used to be in the early 1900's. People don't have collections anymore and if they do they are relatively small and have been broken up. Unless you are a celebrity the rest of the population doesn't attend balls or social gatherings...there just isn't demand anymore. What I wouldn't give to live back in the day where the ton ruled England.....I would have just starred at jewelry all day long. 8) :bigsmile:
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

JewelFreak|1375401991|3494908 said:
Smith1942 said:
When brands like Tiffany and Cartier started, I guess the marketplace was so small and uncrowded compared to today that perhaps it was much easier to build a customer base from that point.
Click to expand...

There was quite a number of incredibly skilled designers & jewelers in the late 19th & early 20th centuries: VC&A, Faberge, Mellerio, Bolin, Verdura, Chaumet, Boucheron, Bulgari, Noury-Mauboussin, Mouawad, Heyman Bros. addition to Cartier & Tiffany -- more that I can't think of offhand. The Heyman brothers, in fact, trained at Faberge & then moved to New York in the early 1900s -- they made some of the spectacular jewelry for Cartier for many years (may still, for all I know), and other major firms, finally beginning to sell direct to customers a few decades ago.

Things were different then: royalty & nobility (& emerging middle-class wealthy) had money to buy jewels & life was formal enough to wear them constantly. The market was larger. There's still plenty of wealth for spectacular pieces, but relatively fewer people buy them & very very few have great collections like the old ones, which have been largely broken up & re-sold.

It's an interesting question. Have to do some pondering. Jewelers making only fabulous, intricate pieces are necessarily smaller -- or have gone more mass market, like Tiffany & Cartier. Some of the wonderful old firms are still alive, but do they make the incredibly intricate & almost miraculous things they used to?

--- Laurie
Click to expand...

That's all extremely interesting, JewelFreak. I enjoyed reading it. I'd never heard of half of those jewellers!

Very good point about life being formal enough to wear large jewels constantly. And I can't think of any famous jewel collectors these days - the only one that springs to mind is the late Elizabeth Taylor. With many rich celebs around, you'd think a bit more conspicuous consumption of jewels would be visible but it all seems to be cars and houses, and borrowing jewels for the red carpet seems to be more the done thing. It's a bit sad, really, when you think what collections they could amass!

About your question whether the old firms still make intricate pieces, I think Asprey does. Some are on the website - possibly Garrard, too. And Tiffany sent me a Blue Book catalogue a few months ago which had a tiara in it - not the one in The Great Gatsby, although that was featured too. This tiara had many yellow cushion diamonds and was a very classic royal style. It was $335,000-ish - which, don't laugh, but I didn't think was bad for a Tiffany tiara with many, many carats of yellow and white diamonds, I forget how many. I thought the tiara would be $2m or something. There were also necklaces up to $7million. Not sure who buys those things - maybe rich Russians or Arabian sheikhs.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

SB621|1375402424|3494915 said:
What I wouldn't give to live back in the day where the ton ruled England.....I would have just starred at jewelry all day long. 8) :bigsmile:
Click to expand...

As someone whose guilty pleasure is reading historical romances, I LOVE reading about balls and all the fancy events attended by the ton. The dresses! The fans! The dances! The rakes! The maidens! THE JEWELS! :naughty: Heehee. Sorry for the tangent, I just could not resist. :Up_to_something:
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

Um, who is MC2, (second post in this thread)? Thanks.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

sonomacounty|1375433451|3495132 said:
Um, who is MC2, (second post in this thread)? Thanks.
Click to expand...


McTeigue & McClelland. http://www.mc2jewels.com/

They have amazing pieces. And if you look closely several PS vendors have ring settings that were "inspired" by MC2.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

McTeague & McClelland http://www.mc2jewels.com/ They make beautiful things -- I'd give anything to have any version of their Flora ring (except the probable $20K to buy it).

Besides the big names, there were small workshops producing marvelous things; they often didn't sign their pieces so we don't know who they were.

Yes, Smith, it's so much less formal now -- I read an interview long ago with the then-Marchioness of Tavistock (now Duchess of Bedford), who said she hadn't worn a tiara in 10 years. People used to dress for dinner every night, jewelry included, & get all sparkly for going out. Magnificent jewels were given as wedding & birthday presents -- and worn. Now we have to hope for royalty to throw a shindig to get a jewelry fix -- and they don't do it as often or on the scale of the past.

By "intricate" I meant the truly inspired & difficult designs & methods of manufacture. Those old-time jewelers were inventors as well as artists & craftsmen. On Youtube is a video discussing the Cartier Panther bracelet, how they had to think up a way to spring-load it so it would open & close a thousand times a year forever, without breaking, without the mechanics' being visible. At the same time, it's a stunningly accurate portrait of a panther, gems invisibly set, light enough for comfortable wear. I don't know of anyone doing that sort of work today. Invisible setting itself is a triumph of invention; VC&A were the first to do it regularly in the 1930s, though the method had been used in France for a couple of hundred years. I think it was Faberge who came up with setting "en tremblant," another breakthrough in that gems so set had to stay firmly put but tremble just a little as the wearer moved. Cannetille, tightly wound gold wire decoration, is exquisite; nobody bothers with it these days. Here are a few examples of what I mean -- I left them huge to show detail.


PS makes this less sharp -- but the gold work is magnificent, incredibly skilled & time-consuming.
Van Cleef & Arpels



Hand braided, shaped, then gems set. Maker unknown.




Carved from one piece of amethyst. Closure & hinge designed to last. Design & setting of stones.
Magnificent imo. David Webb



Cannetille work, exquisite. Unknown jeweler. Probably early-mid 19th century.

vca_indian_embroidery.jpg

a1__gold__diamond__ruby_bracelet.jpg

1webb_all_amethyst__emerald__diamond.jpg

a2__pendant_emerald__cannetille_work.jpg
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

For me, it would be MC2 because they show good versatility in their pieces from plain metal to jewel studded. JAR seems very focused on micropave only.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

They do, their work is fabulous. So if Graff's & many others. But Cartier, Tiffany, VCA, Faberge, etc., built their early businesses on more inventive techniques & designs. Graff's jewelry makes me simply die of pure lust -- the designs are beautiful, gems top of the line -- but none of these do the intricate difficult handwork of earlier jewelers. However, I can't imagine what is left to invent & the cost of producing pieces like these would make them almost impossible to sell -- maybe a world market of 20 people.

--- Laurie
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

Hi,

Thanks for your replies. I really wasn't asking about a small company becoming a large well known one. I wanted to know of those individual artistic/designer types that would rise to the heights of Louis Comfort Tiffiny and Cartier, ect. I am happy to learn that Graff, who is well known, is a contender for future accolades.

JewelFreak you are a wealth of information, so thanks for answering. It doesn't appear that anyone on pricescope is selecting a high end designer for their jewels except Van Creynest(Sp). I have a problem considering anyone a good designer who uses a very thin shank on their rings. Its off balance and not structurally sound, to me. I have become an admirer of Indian Jewelry of late and find pieces that seem to be intricate and beautiful, but are not shown on PS.(not that anyone has to)

I'll probably ruin this whole topic by also asking how it is that some jewelers of today, who make cz jewelry design beautiful pieces. that they claim are cut by diamond cutters, and assembled by hand, and are reasonably priced, but cannot produce the same design in genuine gemstones for an also reasonable price. If small pave stones are set with cz's, why not set some with pink sapphire melee instead of czs, without the cost being astronomically higher.

I think we should search for the new artist/jeweler of our time, and buy some from him/her before the world finds out about them.


Thanks everyone. If you think of anyone else, please post.


Annette
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

You may be comparing apples & oranges, Smitcompton. True artisan jewelry like what we discussed above is extreeeemely expensive to make. It takes decades of experience, knowledge of mechanics & physics to design & create, plus facility in handling & setting gems with varying levels of brittleness, light return, etc. Those guys don't work for peanuts! :o Usually the stones must be individually cut to fit into their appropriate places in the piece -- and it can require years to collect enough matching gems for the design, depending on its complexity & size. That's without adding in cost of metals & stones themselves. Joel Rosenthal spends about a year on each one of his JAR pieces. Many of the older jewelers needed longer than that.

"We make every piece by hand!" is great marketing, but doubtful truth if most of us could buy it on a whim. I honestly can't imagine anyone spending the time to hand-cut a cz when they would know that buyers wouldn't pay enough for a cz to cover their cost & profit. Etsy jewelers do some lovely work & many make their settings individually, but they are not on the level of David Webb or old Cartier by any means. You can't compare them. (I worked, for a VERY short time, for a jeweler in Scarsdale NY who had a sign in his shop proclaiming that he made all the jewelry on the premises in his workshop. Ahem...I put in an hour in the mornings unpacking boxes of necklaces from Italy. Nice quality, but made a very long way from his store.)

Or maybe I misunderstand what you mean? Wouldn't be the first time,lol!

--- Laurie
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

I think Mike Robinson qualifies don't you? That orchid ring and a few other pieces here on PS are SPECTACULAR!

http://www.rdgnz.com/About_RDG.html
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

You beat me to it, VL! I would say the Robinson brothers qualify more than anyone I have seen posted here to be up there with the level of art of a JAR or David Webb. They didn't even want to get into making a lot of settings for PS people because they are busy creating their own original designs. Pink jewel has one of Mike's masterpieces.

I will add that they make some jewerly that I could conceivably wear as opposed to JAR.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

Hi Again Jewelfreak,

I think you clarified my apples and oranges thesis. I must not be taken in with words. I think the cz stones are machine cut, but supposedly hand set. I am writing about two different things. I wondered why they couldnt cut saphire melee the same way the cut the cz in a manufacturing environment and just hand set as they do in the cz. I get what you mean.

I'll take a look at Mike Robinson, so thanks for the name. I sometimes think I want one really beautiful piece of jewelry. I have enough lesser pieces, although some are very nice.

I now have 4 or 5 names of jewelers whose work i can feast my eyes upon.


Annette
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

smitcompton|1375467999|3495417 said:
I wondered why they couldn't cut sapphire melee the same way the cut the cz in a manufacturing environment and just hand set as they do in the cz.
Click to expand...

I think this might already be done for melees otherwise Stuller and other companies will not be offering these.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

I never heard of Robinson either -- what a great find. Very nice jewelry. Love their sense of humor too -- the skeleton bracelet gives me a laugh -- I'd love to have it.

Agree with you about Indian jewelry, Annette -- take a look at the Jewelry Pieces forum if you haven't already -- a couple of threads with pics from PSers lucky enough to live where they can buy in bazaars. From what I've read, much of this work is done as piece-work by Indian housewives, who specialize in one element on, say, a bracelet, which is then passed to another for addition of whatever part she excels in. They make me cry, "I WANT I WANT."

smitcompton said:
It doesn't appear that anyone on pricescope is selecting a high end designer for their jewels except Van Creynest
Click to expand...

Many high-end jewelers don't work with outside stones; that could be a reason. I don't know how many can afford to go that high, either. Who would you pick if you could buy a piece from anyone? Me, it would be an auction house for old David Webb, the Heyman Bros., old Cartier or VC&A, gosh, Faberge, Boivin, Meister, a few more. Or MC2 for current firms, or Graff, drool.

--- Laurie
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

If I might add...

The designs that Cartier was making at the beginning of the 20th Century are what made the company what it is today - a highly coveted, well-branded jewelry house that evolved from being a smaller, artisan focused company - not a company that was churning out pieces like it is today. As some of the other posters eluded to, there may never be another "Cartier" because the place for large jewelry houses is pretty much taken up by Tiffany, Cartier, VCA, and Harry Winston, which are still going strong. And of course, there are lesser known brands that are still large that are not household names that have been making exquisite jewelry for generations, but it is the branding and capital behind the larger 4 jewelry houses that have made them what they are today.

To me, I am more intrigued by pieces made by JAR, James de Givenchy for Taffin. and Viren Bhagat. I would like to know who will be the next high-end artisan like those previously mentioned. The works of JAR fetch enormous amounts of money from auction, even more so than Cartier pieces made in the latter part of the 20th Century.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

JAR has been hot for quite a long time. But as Chrono commented, he mostly does micropave & his designs aren't to everyone's tastes -- I wonder if in another generation his pieces will be as highly prized as early Cartier & others have remained? Guess we'll wait & see!

--- Laurie
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

JewelFreak|1375486713|3495619 said:
JAR has been hot for quite a long time. But as Chrono commented, he mostly does micropave & his designs aren't to everyone's tastes -- I wonder if in another generation his pieces will be as highly prized as early Cartier & others have remained? Guess we'll wait & see!

--- Laurie
Click to expand...

Agreed - his pieces have been hot for a long time and his jewelry seen incredible auction prices in recent years. I would argue that his pieces are as highly prized as early Cartier pieces, and because he generates so few, I think they are as highly prized as early Cartier. Much like JAR today, the quality and ingenuity of early Cartier is what built the foundation for what the company would eventually become - a well respected household name. Because JAR's pieces are so few and one-of-a-kind, I do not think he will become as well known as Cartier but I do not think that is what he is aiming for. Because of that he is almost more special in my opinion.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

http://fd-inspired.com/

A great example of "21st Century Masters" found here.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

Cartier will always be in a class by itself, even though its glory days are over. If you want to see some of their best pieces ever, watch the 1974 Great Gataby movie.
Leviev and Graff are the world's best jewelers. They surpassed Cartier, Tiffany & Winston years ago.
 
Re: which jeweler of the present time will be tomorrows Cart

diamondseeker2006|1375465244|3495385 said:
You beat me to it, VL! I would say the Robinson brothers qualify more than anyone I have seen posted here to be up there with the level of art of a JAR or David Webb. They didn't even want to get into making a lot of settings for PS people because they are busy creating their own original designs. Pink jewel has one of Mike's masterpieces.

I will add that they make some jewerly that I could conceivably wear as opposed to JAR.
Click to expand...
And he's cute too, always a plus for publicity, right? :bigsmile:
 
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