LONDON — Solange Azagury-Partridge has accomplished a near-impossible process, compressing many years of labor and a rainbow of coloration, shimmer and desires right into a espresso desk e-book.
The designer — who started promoting from her kitchen desk, went on to grow to be inventive director of Boucheron, and who now caters to a loyal, worldwide fanbase of personal purchasers — will launch “Solange: Jewelry for Chromantics” (Rizzoli) this week.
It opens a window into her coronary heart, her soul — and her course of — and examines recurring themes, collections and colourful stones through the years. Most significantly, it delves into her inspirations and fixations.
The e-book showcases Solange the astronomer, making sharp-edged earrings out of star-shaped diamonds; Solange the romantic, creating rings with heart-shaped rubies nestled subsequent to one another; and Solange the Biblical scholar, bringing to life a curling gold serpent ring, full with a fig leaf and apple and made with emeralds, rubies and coral.
Solange Azagury-Partridge in coloration.
The e-book additionally options jewels that recall armor, and ones which are impressed by royals, popes, Greek myths and antiquity. It’s a historical past, science and philosophy tutorial and a visible banquet in psychedelic cellophane wrapping.
There’s additionally a fold-out part devoted to one in all Azagury-Partridge’s most well-known designs, Hotlips, a shiny, enameled ring with sensually parted lips finished in myriad colours and designs.
Azagury-Partridge refers to it as a “moveable kiss to put on and share,” and the design has been on everlasting show within the Victoria & Albert Museum since 2008.
There may be additionally a picture of her engagement ring, which Azagury-Partridge designed herself in 1987, and which made her need to grow to be a jeweler. She mentioned the ring, a gold dome with an octahedral diamond bursting from the floor, mentioned it completely mirrored who she was on the time.
“I believed, I’m 24, I can’t put on a diamond solitaire. It wasn’t my fashion or my look. Folks would by no means have believed that it belonged to me,” mentioned the designer throughout an interview at her London workplace, which was ablaze with coloration, together with the pink neon flames lighting up the hearth.
Solange’s entire universe of inspiration is within the e-book, though she doesn’t essentially see it that means.
She mentioned placing the e-book collectively was “troublesome, as a result of I noticed that my archiving just isn’t superb. Additionally, I couldn’t, I couldn’t entry any of my Boucheron archives as a result of they’re in a storage unit someplace.”
Hotlips and diamonds by Solange Azagury-Partridge.
“Additionally, it might have been good to have the photographs from once I used to current the jewellery on my kitchen desk,” however, she admitted, she couldn’t discover them in time.
Azagury-Partridge has definitely come a great distance since these days, however there’s nonetheless extra exploring, pondering and designing to do. She mentioned her archive is brimming with a whole lot of creations that haven’t seen daylight for some time.
She continues to make bespoke designs for purchasers (together with her signature, handwritten gold message rings), and inventory her two London outlets, Hotlips and Solange, with a trove of coloration, valuable and semiprecious stones, and thought-provoking designs.
She sees jewellery as a clean canvas, and seems like she has the liberty to attract something on it. “Designing is like occupational remedy for me — I have to preserve my inventive mind and comfortable,” mentioned the designer.
A Stoned necklace, featured within the e-book. The designer mentioned she thrives on “visible chaos.”
She additionally thrives on “visible chaos,” and needs to maintain channeling that aesthetic into her work — and into the 2 shops.
She mentioned that at the same time as a toddler, she liked going into one vintage jewellery store in London. “There was every part there: all totally different appears, totally different kinds. You by no means knew what you have been going to get, or see. I would like individuals to have that feeling once they come into my store,” she mentioned.
Whereas she could thrive on visible chaos, she’s sharp-eyed in relation to the precise design. Going ahead, Azagury-Partridge mentioned she solely desires to create items which are “significant, or if I can change the dialog just a little bit,” she mentioned.
Azagury-Partridge shall be signing copies of the e-book on Tuesday at Dover Road Market in London and also will be giving a chat on the V&A on Nov. 11. On Nov. 20, she’ll be signing books at Rizzoli in New York.
The e-book retails for 73 kilos, and shall be bought at Dover Road Market London and Rizzoli New York.