Hiya, Love! Lydia Courteille Unveils New Assortment in Paris – JCK
What’s your favourite love story? Mine tends to vary relying on no matter I’m studying or watching. A standard denominator for me is chemistry and sophistication variations (exhibit A: Woman Chatterley’s Lover, a latest and riveting Netflix field of bonbons I devoured a few decade or so after studying the guide for the primary time). Jane Eyre does it for me, too. Daisy and Gatsby. Marianne and Connell in Regular Individuals. And I nonetheless take into consideration the star-crossed hookups that occurred in The Breakfast Membership and surprise what might need develop into of them (despite the fact that the me of 2023 completely understands how John Hughes movies are problematic).
Simply perhaps don’t ask the French designer Lydia Courteille what her favourite love story is, as a result of that’s the title of the gathering she simply unveiled throughout Paris Trend Week. And answering would require her to decide on a favourite amongst these extravagant jewels which are impressed by nice historic romances, most of them of the legendary legend selection.
Courteille says on this Zoom conversation (through which she was interviewed by the creator M.J. Rose) that the brand new items are a continuation of Courteille’s La Vie En Rose assortment from two years in the past.
The muses for every bit run the gamut from a sure historic Egyptian queen and her lover to the heroes and heroines of Medieval literature to the sorts of romances that performed out behind closed doorways and between the (satin) sheets.
For Courteille, the widespread denominator is pink, pink, and extra pink, expressed in morganites, pink sapphires, and rubies.
“My assortment could be very monochrome—pink is the colour of affection,” she says within the Zoom. “With this assortment, my buyer can be taught tales and find out about supplies. I hope they be taught one thing and that they appear extra lovely in my jewellery.”
The Cleopatra x Marc Antony earrings can be an excellent place to start out. There are hand-painted enamel medallions that bear the likeness of the well-known Egyptian lovers together with symbolic, storytelling motifs together with an ankh, and a snake, which refers back to the asp that sealed Cleopatra’s destiny.
The eagle motif seen within the Jupiter x Ganymede ring alludes to the parable through which Jupiter (Zeus in Greek mythology) transforms himself into the chook to kidnap Ganymede, a younger man from Troy, and produce him to Olympus. Courteille shares the view of some historians that this relationship was homoerotic and should effectively have been nonconsensual. She consists of this commentary within the Love Story lookbook:
Ganymede’s delusion is greater than a easy story. It’s yet one more piece within the historical past of historic sexuality, with specific significance for queer historical past. If the king of the gods was allowed to have a male lover, then this definitely suggests loads for the folks adhering to that faith. Ganymede’s delusion signifies that erotic relations between people of the identical intercourse had been on the very least tolerated.
A convertible model, the Heloise x Abelard earrings incorporate a parchment scroll and a feather quill pen (a nod to the letters they wrote to one another), crenellated tops of castles and carved intaglios within the shapes of coffins as a result of the lovers are famously buried collectively in Pére Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
She brings extra love tales to life in earring kind, plus a bracelet that can make your goals take flight:
There are just a few Love Story designs which are in manufacturing however not but full. A coronary heart pendant and a handpainted lover’s eye ring are a jeweled salute to the 18th-century forbidden love that fashioned between the Prince of Wales—later topped King George IV of England—and Maria Fitzherbert, whom he may by no means marry as a result of she was Catholic.
And for a recent instance, Courteille may have chosen any variety of well-known love tales however settled on yet one more story of forbidden ardour, one which ended badly: Marilyn Monroe and President Kennedy, who’re rumored to have had a quick affair within the early Nineteen Sixties. It’s an open cuff bracelet with every of the ends capped with a star-studded morganite. Extra symbolism right here: The gems are a matched pair that by no means come collectively absolutely in an embrace.
Within the Zoom, Courteille says she included this controversial couple as a result of she’s “subversive” and specializing in JFK and Jackie was too “basic” for her. “As an unbiased designer, being subversive is a technique to categorical my liberty and freedom,” she says.
High: There aren’t any lovebirds credited with inspiring this ring but it surely showcases all of the design codes of Lydia Courteille’s new Love Story assortment, from the pillowy morganites to the corseted shoulders and bow-trimmed gallery: Ring in 18k gold with morganite, pink sapphires and rubies, worth on request
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