Maiko Takeda concentrates mainly on head adornments. Whether with masks, halos or visors, this Japanese designer based in London makes them out of feathers laser-cut from plastic film or acrylic. The color gradations accentuate the transparency, and the play of light and shadow. These head ornaments oscillate between the dandelion flower that disappears in the slightest breeze and the helmet bristling with nerve endings intended for some neuroscientific experiment. Maiko Takeda is passionate about science and loves the minimal, repetitive, obsessive music of Philip Glass.

The Musée des Arts Décoratifs has just bought  a unique book from Wartski, entitled, “Les Émaux Cloisonnés Anciens et Modernes” (“Ancient and Modern Cloisonné Enamels”). A very fitting purchase, because the enamel plaque, whose cover was inlaid and made by the jeweller Alexis Falize, was first exhibited there in 1869. It was Katherine Purcell, associate director of Wartski and author of “Falize: A Dynasty of Jewelers” who spotted it and describes it in this video. During your trip to see it at the MAD (from April in the “Japonism” room), don’t miss Falize’s other pieces in the gallery des Bijoux.

Discoveries of this significance are extremely rare… Although long since plundered, it turns out that these two tombs of the Mycenaean civilization (between 1600 and 1100 BC) still conserved some elements of their treasure. The two American archaeologists from the University of Cincinnati (UC) have discovered inside a pile of gold leaf fragments that once covered the dark walls, along with pearls of malachite, carnelian and amber. As well as two gold jewels: a ring with two bulls and ears of barley engraved on it and a pendant representing the head of Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of love and beauty.

Exhibited for the first time ever, this natural pearl, the oldest known in the world, is one of the most moving pieces in the show “10,000 Years of Luxury” (which features 350 items from the Arts Décoratifs, Louvre and quai Branly museums). Discovered in a Neolithic site (between 5,800 and 5,600 BC), it has been dated at 8,000 years old by specialists. It also reminds us that the Gulf States were the centre of a flourishing pearl trade until the 1920s.  To be continued on TFJP.

Exhibition: “10,000 Years of Luxury”, 30 October to 18 February 2020.

At Dior, Victoire de Castellane is particularly fond of applying asymmetry to earrings. She in on a quest for the quirky, seeking balance in imbalance. While keeping the same materials, she plays with scale, reverses the colors of precious stones or sets off a difference in shape with an identical construction. With Victoire de Castellane, a pair of earrings no longer consists of inseparable twins.