Image: Suzanne Kalan
A fascination for this great classic of Art Deco jewellery that designer Suzanne Kalan now offers in a collector’s capsule collection through the Dover Street Market concept store. You can discover it from now on at Galeries Lafayette Champs-Élysées.
All it takes is a visit to the Couture Show in Vegas, the largest jewellery show in the United States, where she received an award in 2014, to understand the extent of the Suzanne Kalan phenomenon in North America. Everywhere an army of collaborators are busy around a crowd of customers and a (literal) deluge of diamonds and sapphires of all colours. A single constant, all adopt this baguette-shaped shape with straight lines. A jewel typical of the Roaring Twenties Art Deco period that is now Suzanne Kalan’s visual signature.
And yet, “it is a very demanding cut. If you don’t use the best quality diamonds, the slightest defect immediately emerges,” says this heiress of a long line of Armenian jewelers who dared to embark on the fantasy couture business. It was necessary for her to defy the reticence of her craftsmen and constantly push the limits to give birth to her famous Fireworks collection.
Pure chance
Her original idea? Pure chance. It is by playing with stones scattered on her desk that she decided to keep this pattern with graphic asymmetry to spread her atypical diamonds along her classic frames. “I wanted to do something different with that baguette cut. I always loved it every time I looked at one of them up close. But I couldn’t figure out what I was going to do with it,” she recalls. “At first, it was very difficult to explain the appeal of the baguette diamond to men. For them, it had no value because they wanted to buy a large diamond for their wives. A classic that says something about their social status, while women will let themselves be seduced by design. Now, everyone wants it and in fact, it’s thanks to the buyers of Neiman Marcus or Dover Street Market who could truly see the difference.”
In Paris at the end of November
At the end of November, the iconic London concept store Dover Street Market will celebrate its 15th anniversary. Suzanne Kalan has been one of its favorite customers for more than ten years. It is this combination that has enabled her to penetrate the European market and see her popularity rise sharply. An intimate and loyal relationship between Suzanne and Mimi Hoppen, the jewellery manager of the department store, who gave substance to this original capsule collection with black highlights. It is available today at the Galeries Lafayette Champs-Élysées DSM corner. Everyday essentials that give a pretty twist to your classics.
