To not point out the pig wearing lace-trimmed grey silk, the panda in pearls, or the frog sporting a tan swimsuit plus crimson necktie. They’re all a part of designer, artist, and educator Rémy Rotenier‘s newest high quality jewellery assortment, his first in a while, and it’s a sequence of diamond-set unisex brooches. Entitled Rémanimals, the items mix Rotenier’s superlative aptitude for freehand drawing with state-of-the-art lapidary carving. Additionally they connect with a trend second that’s placing brooches, notably males carrying brooches, on the heart of many conversations each time they seem on the pink carpet and past.
Like a lot of probably the most whimsical jewellery we’ve seen these days, the inspiration for the gathering got here to Rotenier in the course of the COVID-19 lockdown, which he spent at his house in Albuquerque, N.M., together with his husband and Boston terrier.
“Whereas I’ve at all times liked incorporating animals into jewellery in my very own work and for different high-end jewelers, this was a time once I suppose many people spent a whole lot of time at house with our animals, and I feel for lots of people there have been moments of discovery with the animals, how grounding they had been, how unimaginable they had been,” says Rotenier, who was born in France and skilled on the Place Vendôme in Paris early in his 39-year jewellery profession. He provides that he “actually wished to design one thing that celebrated animals as a result of that they had saved us in a single piece” throughout that tough interval of isolation and uncertainty.
The design of the Rémanimals borrows from a basic fashion referred to as the Essex brooch, which was a reverse-carved painted portrait miniature common in the course of the Victorian period. Rotenier remembers being interested in Essex brooches when he lived in Paris and would go to the antiques sellers throughout the road from the Louvre.
In England, Essex brooches had been first popularized by the journey fanatic Thomas Cook dinner, who introduced them again from Belgium. The English, legendary for his or her love of horses and canine, had been quickly calling them Essex brooches, after artist William Essex, who specialised in enamel miniatures and was a favourite of Queen Victoria.
Rotenier’s model of the brooches start with a drawing of the creature in query (examples under). The designer has painted high quality artwork miniatures at numerous factors in his profession for many years and is taken into account a grasp artist relating to jewellery rendering strategies. Actually, subsequent week at AGTA GemFair, he can be internet hosting an MJSA-sponsored seminar to current a step-by-step information to drawing pearls.
The pictures of the animals are then reverse-carved into rock crystal cabochons after which reverse-painted in oil. This work is carried out by a talented lapidary artist from Germany that Rotenier related with one yr on the Tucson Gem Present.
“She covers the cabochons on the underside with a plaque of mother-of-pearl, and it’s stunning as a result of when you take a look at the picture from the highest, you get the iridescence of the mother-of-pearl with the loupe-like like impact from the cabochon crystal,” says Rotenier. “That’s when it turns into an actual jewel that you just set in gold.”
The painted rock crystal portraits are then framed in sterling silver set with diamonds and completed with 22k gold bezels. The whole lot is made in the USA.
“I wished the brooch itself to be extra geometric and extra fashionable than these prized possessions from the Victorian period,” says Rotenier, “so that in the first place look, you understand you aren’t your great-grandmother’s brooch, however extra of a revival of one thing that that had a lot allure. And we needed to make it related for right now’s tastes.”
Every Rémanimal is $5,800 and customized designs begin at $6,400. “The consumer turns into part of the design course of, similar to any well-run customized design session besides it includes your finest animal,” says Rotenier. He’s presently engaged on fairly a number of customized orders, together with one starring a cat named Miso who can be styled within the consumer’s spouse’s favourite Gucci gown. #Rarrw!
High: Designer Rémy Rotenier immortalized his beloved Boston terrier, Zuzu, on this portrait. “I wished to decorate him like I gown as a result of he’s my canine—the pink shirt, the Air France–blue jacket,” says the designer. “And he has a warmer pink tie, which I actually preferred. He’s turning his head to have a look at you. And that’s typical of the way in which he appears. I like when he first appears at you after you name him. That’s what I attempted to seize.”
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