New special bespoke jewellery launch for The Weekender at Old Granada Studios

I am really excited about bringing this new special project  to Manchester this Saturday and Sunday for The Weekender at Old Granada Studios 20th 21st June.

The concept of this ring is to involve you to make your own contribution to create a unique piece  just for you.

Inspired by the wonderful world of nature, it is the Caddisfly's clever larvae which helped to create the concept of this new piece. 

To give themselves protection when they are in their young state they create their own tailor made casing.

They build their homes from the natural materials around them, each marvellous creature crafting their own perfect fit using their own choice of organic objects they find.

The artist Hubert Duprat even created an environment of minute gems and  golden nuggets so that the larvae that lodged within could en-robe themselves in the glittering treasures. I was blown away by this when I saw them in Paris at the Dries Van Noten exhibition at Les Arts Décoratifs.

For this new collection of rings I want to allow each individual to be the crafty caddisfly collecting for their own ring.

Bejewelled cases left behind by the craftings of a clever Caddisfly larvae thanks to the artist Hubert Duprat.

I made the very first of these rings for myself to signify a big change in my environment and keep a piece of it with me and I am really looking forward to allowing others to wear a part of the places that mean something to them too.

 

For each bespoke commission you can find your own materials which I can use to create your own beautifully encrusted ring. 

This could be a little sand from your favourite beach, or some gravelly debris from your very own doorstep.

I will be at The Weekender, the free designer festival at Old Granada Studios this weekend to meet you and chat about this special project, but please also feel free to email me at info@jademellor.com with any questions ideas or just to say hello!

Jefforgina Editorial - Twill Magazine

Here's an exotic shoot featuring my Hewn Collection shot by the talented duo behind Jefforgina!

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‘TWILL’s beauty aspires to cross many bound­aries. The utopian goal is that of giv­ing plea­sure to areas of the reader’s brain that are stim­u­lated by the beauty of seri­ous orig­i­nal points of view in fields as diverse as pol­i­tics, econ­omy, sci­ence, lit­er­a­ture, sex, pho­tog­ra­phy and art, some­times tak­ing shape as fash­ion. 

"We, at ‘Twill, have thus decided to reverse the golden rule of pub­lish­ing; instead of iden­ti­fy­ing a class of poten­tial cus­tomers on whom to foist a mag­a­zine, we have cre­ated a pub­li­ca­tion that defines ourselves."

The mag­a­zine is loosely divided into three sec­tions: seri­ous sub­jects, visual arts and our unique fotoro­manzi, an extrav­a­gantly lus­cious lit­er­ary retake on a clas­sic genre of Italian-French kitsch.

Based in Paris, ‘Twill is pub­lished by TWS Press France. But it is mis­lead­ing to place it in a spe­cific coun­try; ‘Twill is the result of a dis­trib­uted effort com­ing from Italy, Eng­land, France and the Amer­i­cas. A vir­tual edi­to­r­ial office, in essence, but this is what makes such new genre of mag­a­zine an inter­est­ing and dar­ing challenge.

Concentrated, collection for Sruli Recht

 PREVIEW

Sruli Recht A/W13 Collection, CONCENTRATED presented at Paris Fashion Week including the mineral and resin jewellery collection I produced with him. Other materials include Icelandic down, Japanese denim and heavy satin, goat skin, walnut wood, cashmere rib, metal mesh, Austrian felt, Scottish waxed cotton, viscose jersey, wool and modal jersey, silk and cupro shirting, shearling, pixelated rabbit fur, and Italian wool suiting, providing a rich variety of intriguing trextures.

Here is a preview from the lookbook. 

“This collection is completely burned.” - Sruli Recht, January, 2013. The collection in three words – facetted, charred, smoking.

Black Ring, Pyrite & Resin

Wood & Leather jacket, Sruli Recht & Elisa Stroyk

Black Double ring, pyrite & resin

Asymetrical Ring, Resin & Pyrite

White ring with bornite specimen 

Asymmetrical white ring with bornite mineral

Double finger faceted ring with peacock ore specimen

More on the collection at Dezeen and further details at www.srulirecht.com

Deeper Underground Paris : The Empire of Death

As well as the amazing fossil finds the old quarry of Catacombes de Paris in the 18th Century it was filled with the bones of 6 million Parisians. If you are squeamish look away now. If not, please hand in your permission slip, tick the box to say you are over 15 and let's get spooky...

Stop! This is the Empire of Death

The cavernous quarries became home to the remains of six million Parisians in the 18th Century when the overflowing Cemetery of Innocent had to be moved as it was causing infections in the area.

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Port Mahon Sculptures of the palace in Minorca in memory of the first Quarry Inspectors including  Decure who was imprisoned opposite the palace in the Balearic Islands for a long time. He was killed in a cave in during work in the quarry.

The styling of the bones and surrounding caverns is  known as "romantico-macabre".

"The removal of the bones began after the blessing of the place on April 7, 1786 and was continued until 1788, always at night and according to a ceremonial made up of a procession of priests who sang the burial service along the way borrowed by the tipcarts charged with bones and covered with a black veil. Thereafter, this place was used, until 1814, to collect the bones of all the cemeteries of Paris."

This macabre labyrinth has attracted many visitors to satisfy their curiosity, including Ladies of the Court, Charles X, an Austrian Empoper and Napolean III and his son. To follow in their footsteps details can be found here.

Underground Paris - A Journey through Space & Time

Invitation to a Journey through Space and Time

I had my first chance to explore the re-opened Catacombs under Paris in December. We were lucky enough to visit when such a unique place, full of natural history as well as the macabre structures of human bones was eerily quiet as the minus temperatures above chilled the city air.

"Between street level and the bottom of the Catacombs, the visitor is taken back nearly 45 million years in time. You go through a succession of increasingly ancient layers of rock until you reach a bed of limestone whih corresponds to a geological period called the "Lutetian" (between 48 and 40 million years ago)."

"The Quarryman's foot-bath"

"This period was first identified in Paris called "Lutetian" after the ancient name for Paris, Lutetia. The official reference profile (GSSP) for Lutetian is located in the catacombs, at the water-well that bears the name Bain de pieds des carriers ("The Quarrymen's Foot-bath")."

"The Lutetian doesn't actually account for very much time in the history of the Earth, which is 4,500 million years old. The dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago, while modern Man has only been developing for 200 000 years,"

natural strata and man made supports above

You can read up on the Catacombs of Paris here and there will be a second more grisly post to follow...