Paris-based art collective Andrea Crews aims to combine different aspects of contemporary creation such as fashion, art, music, film to highlight personal creativity and freedom of experimentation. The collective was founded by designer, Maroussia Rebecq, and for the organization’s apparel and accessories line, all items are produced entirely out of recycled materials. For the smartEcolette collection, a collaboration between Colette and eco-friendly mini automobile brand, Smart, Andrea Crews has produced 150 unique items of accessories that adhere to the collaboration’s theme of urban mobility, design and sustainability. All trinkets used on the jewelry are second hand objects, situating the items in the grey area between new and used. According to Rebecq, her collection is as versatile as the city-friendly Smart car: “”Our smart accessories are just as diverse as the urban culture that inspired them: wear them as a necklace, put them on your key ring or hang them on your rear-view mirror for more glamour in your smart.” The collection is now available online at Colette along with works of 5 other designers.
British designer Giles Deacon made his name in the fashion industry mixing superior craftsmanship with whimsical designs and popular motifs. He specializes in crafty volumes and proportions. This design sensibility carried itself over into his collaboration with Atelier Swarovski. In his fourth collaboration with the renowned crystal jeweler for Autumn/ Winter 2009, Deacon gets handy with familiar craft material, felt, and mixes them with embellished crystals of interesting shapes and sizes. The crystals are hand-stamped and hand-marked Crystallized Swarovski Elements in select colors with beautiful names such as golden shadow, light rose and peridot. Other than the usual crystals, studs, pins and cupchains also adorn the 5mm cutout felt base. The palette is dark and luxurious in cool grays and sensuous earthy browns and creamy whites. The collection is creative in its mix of medium but also extremely wearable with the recently popular minimalist trend, and definitely good news for those allergic to metals and minerals.
A Roman Holiday atmosphere permeated Rome on Wednesday night as 1400 guests flocked to Bulgari’s 125th anniversary festivities that kicked off with a retrospective of historic baubles at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni.
Amongst the glitterati to be dazzled by Bulgari’s showstoppers were Jessica Alba, Chloe Sevigny, Ginnifer Goodwin, Gina Lollobrigida, Selma Blair, Patricia Field, Carla Fendi, Ferruccio and Ilaria Ferragamo, Gildo and Paolo Zegna and Margherita Maccapani Missoni. About half a dozen lacquered black rooms displayed iconic Bulgari pieces that traced its glorious past. They included a 321-karat Burma sapphire on a silk cord, Liz Taylor’s egg-sized emerald brooch given to her by Richard Burton and a star-spangled-banner choker created for the New York store opening in 1972. via WWD
Delfina Delettrez has inherited the creative passion for fashion and accessories from her parents Silvia Fendi and Bernard Delettrez, the venerable French jeweler. A fourth generation Fendi, Delfina, is based in Rome. She is exhibiting her limited edition jewelry collection for the first time in the Middle East at Al Sabah Art & Design from May 23.
Delfina’s first collection of jewels was presented to the international press in October 2007 at Colette, Paris. Her new collection 2009 is inspired by dreamlike visions, ancient beliefs, superstitions, popular traditions, ex-votos, gardens and animals in paradisiacal colours and surreal effects. The collection’s main theme “wavers between good and evil. Death and life. Through the applied arts, I want to exorcise and materialise this concept which is often frightening and uncomfortable,” upholds Delfina ironically, courageously, and with determination.
Delfina renders all these mysteries and popular legends in her collection using transparent varnish effects and uniquely daring techniques. These hermetic, forbidden, sordid or forbidden subjects lose their frightening and worrying aspect, giving substance to a collection that uses gold, silver, enamel, precious stones, fur, bone and tusks.The international press has unanimously defined her jewellery as “Precious talismans, good luck charms, more than just banal, boring jewellery….”
Open to Public Date : 24th May ~ 28th May 2009
Rome - May 20, 2009. Bulgari celebrates its 125th anniversary by inaugurating its first-ever retrospective exhibit tonight in the prestigious Exposition Palace of Rome that will remain open to the public from May 22 to September 13, 2009.
The “Between Eternity and History: 1884 - 2009″ exhibit will cover the most significant phases in the history and evolution of Bulgari design, from the opening of the first store on Via Sistina in 1884 to the present day. Attending the cocktail party for the inauguration will be Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno and many illustrious cultural figures, show business celebrities, well-known politicians, and important entrepreneurs in the Italian capital. Numerous Italian and international stars have arrived in Rome to celebrate this historic achievement with the Bulgari family.
The inauguration of the retrospective exhibit will also give Bulgari a chance to increase its contribution to Save the Children’s “Rewrite the Future” campaign, which was created to provide a quality education to 8 million children living in war-torn countries. Bulgari has pledged to support this campaign throughout 2009. In the presence of Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, General Secretary of the International Save the Children Alliance, Charlie MacCormac, Managing Director of Save the Children USA, Claudio Tesauro, President of Save the Children Italia, and many other international representatives of the organization, Bulgari will present an extraordinary limited edition collection, for the first time in public, composed of 11 unique couture jewels and 7 luxury watches that will be auctioned off at Christie’s New York next December 8, 2009. The total estimated value of the jewelry and watches is approximately 3 million euros, and the entire proceeds will be donated to “Rewrite the Future.”