Behind the scenes of the creation of Louis Vuitton Bravery jewelry
In 1832, a 10-year-old boy from the Jura lost his mother. His farmer father remarried a cruel woman and died shortly after. The boy, then aged 13, left home to seek his fortune in Paris. Living off odd jobs along the way, it took him more than 2 years to travel the 500 kilometres that separated him from the capital. This child was Louis Vuitton . 20 years after his departure, he would be the craftsman behind trunks made for the Empress of France. 200 years later, he is one of the references of luxury throughout the world.
The exceptional history of Louis Vuitton
“ It’s like a fairy tale, ” said Francesca Amfitheatrof , artistic director of Louis Vuitton jewelry and watches. Vuitton’s early life journey was her inspiration for this year’s high jewelry collection. An incredible 90-piece series called Bravery , released especially to celebrate the bicentennial of the epic.
Amfitheatrof resides far from France in Vuitton, Connecticut . She lives there with her husband Ben Curwin, a managing partner of an investment advisory firm, and her teenage children. The Litchfield County property, built in 1880, spans nearly 15 acres and includes a small cluster of white buildings, including Amfitheatrof’s studio.
Louis Vuitton's push into luxury jewelry
The legend that is Louis Vuitton has long served as a symbol of wealth in popular culture, albeit in reference to the brand’s iconic leather goods. But recently, the brand has been stepping up its investments in its jewelry division. The hiring of Amfitheatrof in 2018 was the starting point. In early 2020, Vuitton made waves in the gemstone world by purchasing the second-largest rough diamond in history. The 1,758-carat Sewelo diamond, mined the previous year, is so large that it likely couldn’t fit in a human mouth.
If popular culture is a barometer, it’s telling that the first episode of Netflix’s reality show Bling Empire focuses not on a Vuitton bag, but on jewelry. Titled “ Necklacegate 90210 ,” the episode’s climactic scene features two Beverly Hills millionaires wearing the same pink sapphire necklace from Vuitton’s 2012 high jewelry collection, even though the piece is one-of-a-kind.
Louis Vuitton Jewelry: The Amfitheatrof Style
Amfitheatrof’s designs for the brand’s fine jewelry collections are vibrant and modern. She describes her technique as painting with gemstones . “ I tend to use a lot of stones, ” she said. “ Because I’m not a gemologist, I’m a little more radical about it. ” Her team was “ perplexed ” when she arrived. “ It’s the Place Vendôme ,” she explained, referring to the location of Vuitton’s flagship Paris boutique, located on the famous square built in honor of Louis XIV. “ It’s very classical. ”
Still, Amfitheatrof’s “ more is more ” ethos is fitting for a brand whose definition is probably not boxed-in classicism. Le Mythe , a luxe multi-strand sapphire and emerald necklace featuring a central Vuitton fleur-de-lis, “ has three huge stones ,” Amfitheatrof says. “ Most people would make three necklaces of them. I want them all on one piece. ” Another Louis Vuitton necklace , dubbed La Constellation d’Hercule, inspired by the stars visible at the time of Vuitton’s birth , features more than 30 tanzanites, tsavorites, and scarab-sized opals, as an image downloaded from Hubble, plus 15 diamonds in Vuitton’s patented Fleur- and Étoile-cuts.
“ No other house has patented a diamond cut, ” Amfitheatrof says. She credits Vuitton CEO Michael Burke , who personally approves every stone purchase, for building the brand’s top-notch team of gemologists. Her favorite piece from the Bravery collection is actually a double one. They are brilliant bracelets with twin center stones, a diamond and a Colombian Muzo emerald . Called L’Aventure , this Louis Vuitton bracelet can be worn as a cuff with its two components, or individually, one on each wrist. “ It’s so balanced ,” she says, “ that there’s nothing to change. ”
The creative process of Francesca Amfitheatrof
How does Francesca Amfitheatrof work? “ I go to our CEO and say, ‘I have this idea, ’” she said, describing her creative process. “ And then I step back. ” She builds a mood board and breaks her master narrative into stories. In Bravery, for example, teenager Louis’s two-plus-year trek has been broken into thematic chapters. “ I can’t just say, ‘Oh, here we have these beautiful stars, ’” she quipped theatrically, referring to the constellation Hercules. “ Let’s just repeat them everywhere, and that’s going to be the inspiration for the collection. That would be boring. ”
Storytelling is now a buzzword in sales. But for Amfitheatrof, it’s simply the way her brain works. Her father was the Russian bureau chief for Time magazine. Her mother was a public relations officer for Valentino and Armani. Her paternal grandfather was the composer and conductor behind the music for Lassie Come Home, and her father was a Russian novelist. As she puts it, “ I’ve always been surrounded by a certain depth of mind. ”
The dichotomy of luxury
The past year has not been easy for the luxury sector . LVMH ’s revenue fell from more than €53 billion in 2019 to around €44.7 billion in 2020. But, according to Amfitheatrof, “ high jewelry really got a rethink during COVID. People were struggling, especially the very wealthy, to be satisfied because they couldn’t, all of a sudden, indulge in their passions. Jewelry wasn’t just an incredible investment anymore. You can wear it and enjoy it, husbands can see it on their wives. The world is full of shocking disparities, and the pandemic has highlighted that in a particularly stark way. ” Is this dichotomy something Amfitheatrof has struggled with? “ No ,” she says. “ No. You see, my industry is not a fast-paced industry.” I know that what I create will outlive me. So I really have to think in a timeless way. "
Louis Vuitton: an exceptional destiny for exceptional jewels
Scarcity in fashion is almost always engineered. In the world of fine jewelry, supply cannot be truly increased, only the illusion of a larger supply can be created. Most of the gold mined from the bowels of the Earth is thought to have been deposited, like priceless space junk, by a meteorite that collided with our planet in its early days. Our diamonds are mysterious, formed 150 kilometers above the Earth's surface over hundreds of millions of years. In this sense, time is truly a luxury commodity. And to preserve its value, a Vuitton gemstone must never have been treated with oil (with the exception of some emeralds) or heat (which alters the color). Or have been grown in a lab. In some ways, this philosophy is consistent with Louis Vuitton's history .
“ He could have taken two weeks to get to Paris, ” Amfitheatrof said of Vuitton, whose own home region is perhaps best known for the Large Hadron Collider, which straddles the Swiss border not far from the Jura Mountains. “ He chose that moment to become the man he wanted to be. And I think that’s phenomenal, ” she concluded.
