Tagged with 'Events'

A new exhibition of portraits of the Queen at the National Portrait Gallery, London is a charming retrospective look at the Queen's public life over the last 60 years. Opened to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, this collection of formal, press photographs and contemporary portraits explores the Queen's relationship with her image and the media.

The exhibition has been organised chronologically by the NPG, with one portrait representing each year of the Queen's reign. Formal portraits by artists including Dorothy Wilding, Lucian Freud and Annie Leibovitz are arranged next to more private observations of this very public figure. The visitor is encouraged to consider how these images have evolved.

Although pearls are a constant throughout the exhibition, there are a number of surprises. Cecil Beaton's iconic portrait of the Queen on her Coronation day in 1953 is still magnificent, but Pietro Annigoni's dramatic image of a monarch in her ceremonial robes (seen here for the first time in over 25 years) is oddly of another time.

Best of all is their contrast with some of the snapped photographs. Patrick Lichfield's joyful picture of the Queen aboard the Royal Yacht, Eve Arnold's glimpse of the Queen sheltering under an umbrella and the anguish caught by Dylan Martinez following the fire at Windsor Castle are as striking as the formal poses.

In comparison, moving through the gallery rooms, more contemporary portraits by Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol and Gilbert and George mainly offer a changing interpretation of this iconic image.

One of the highlights undoubtedly is Chris Levine's lightbox entitled 'Lightness of Being', catching the Queen in a meditative moment between exposures. It is a powerful and thoughtful piece.

The Queen: Art & Image exhibition is open at the National Portrait Gallery until 21st October 2012 and is highly recommended if you are visiting central London this summer.

That was an enthralling and nerve-racking fortnight of tennis. Congratulations to both Jonathan Marray and Andy Murray on their outstanding performances this year!

Tennis at Wimbledon has certainly changed since the game was played a century ago. Just look at this image of two gentlemen players from 1910. What a difference a new roof has made to the play and atmosphere of the 2012 championship.

It was lovely to see also that pearl sets were still very much in fashion in the Centre Court stands. Around the same time as when this image of a very different Wimbledon was taken, new techniques for culturing pearls were being developed in Japan. Today the beauty of these classic gems has become more affordable, with their colours and shapes being loved by contemporary jewellery designers.

Having been asked by a number of our customers for matching pieces of pearl jewellery, we have launched our first collections of Pearl Sets at Winterson and we will be adding more over the coming weeks.

Matching pearls together takes patience, experience and access to a large number of pearls to ensure that the quality, size and colour of each set is appropriate. Even a colour described as white can have cooler silvery or warmer cream hues that should be considered so as to be able to match pearls well. Matching is one of the value factors that we use to grade pearls and can be found as part of the detailed description of each piece of pearl jewellery at Winterson.

Most pearl sets combine a necklace or pendant with a pair of earrings, and perhaps a bracelet. Our Pearl Sets combine some of our best loved pieces of pearl jewellery and have a combination to suit almost every occasion! If you do need any help or advice, please do not hesitate to contact one of our team.

New pearls please...

With thoughts of sporting British Gold later this month edging ever closer, the story of Britain's history and relationship with this precious metal is told by The Goldsmiths' Company in a fascinating new exhibition entitled "Gold: Power and Allure".

Housed in the magnificent surroundings of Goldsmiths' Hall, London, the story of our love affair with gold starts with a chance discovery of ancient goldwork near Stonehenge. Dating back to 2300BC, it is thought that these ornaments are some of the earliest pieces of worked gold found in the UK. A series of Bronze Age and Early Iron Age torcs and crescent-shaped lanula neck pieces are also really quite beautiful.

Since then, gold has been actively mined throughout England and Wales, with gold for royal wedding rings today traditionally being made from Welsh Gold. In the year of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the exhibition includes a number of historic and royal items including gold crowns, brooches and a rather ghoulish gold ring, that was taken from the finger of the dead Queen Elizabeth I.

Coinage explores Britain's currency and its relationship with the Gold Standard, which was introduced by Sir Isaac Newton in 1816. With the Olympics weeks away, the sporting trophies on display include a number of Olympic medals from 1900 to 1912 that are made from pure gold. These particularly rare medals compare to today's Olympic Gold medals which are cast with 92.5% silver and just 1.34% gold.

Among the more unusual gold items in the exhibition is this delightful mechanical life-size mouse made in gold and decorated with red garnet eyes and pearls. Thought to be of Swiss origin by Henri Maillardet, and dating from around 1810, it was purchased from a London dealer by John and Josephine Bowes for the sum of £22 in 1871 for their museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham.

By far the cutest exhibit in the show, the mouse measures around 11cm and is believed to be one of less than ten in the world. Wound by hand, the clockwork mouse still runs around and twitches its whiskers!

The Gold: Power and Allure exhibition is open until 28th July 2012 at Goldsmiths' Hall, London and admission is free.

There really was much for jewellery lovers to admire this week in London with London Jewellery Week underway, and a fabulous double opening of this year's Treasure and the Goldsmiths' Gold: Power and Allure exhibition at Somerset House. But our favourite show was at Central Saint Martins, where this year's graduating CSM students exhibited their work with 'Sorry for the Inconvenience, but We Are Trying to Change the World'.

This was the first year of degree shows since CSM moved to their new spectacular site at London's Kings Cross, a purpose built campus set around the frontage of an old Victorian goods interchange. The restored Granary building is quite stunning, with a historic brick frontage giving way to an industrial and modern interior space. All the college's disciplines have also been brought together under one roof for the first time and this week students from Fashion, Graphic, Ceramics, Textiles, Product Design and Jewellery showed off their work.

In the BA Jewellery 2012 show, we loved these pieces by Caroline Kernick. Inspired by 1920s French ballet and dance, a display of 5 highly intricate and elaborate necklaces, decorated with diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, coral and pearls, immediately catches the eye. Look a little more closely and the surprising reality of the hand drawn designs and the material used becomes clear.

Each of the necklaces has been meticulously constructed from individual sheets of 270g dove-grey card, layered with gouache or fine drawing to recreate the impression of fine jewellery. Diamonds are presented with depth, dimension and light sources as if they were set. Even the seed pearls have been given a lacquered lustre and a characteristic flame effect has been added to the Melo melo and Conch pearls.

A Papier Gouaché DIAMOND AND MULTI-GEM PEARL NECKLACE

Designed as a necklace mimicking the scale and arrangements of the Ziegfeld Follies centralising three Melo paper-pearls and a Conch paper-pearl all surrounded by graduating impressions of coral beads, pink sapphires, zesty orange sapphires and South Sea paper-pearls. Finely rendered white diamonds suspend the central motif and lead to a multitude of paper-pearl strands. All gouache pigments individually applied with Kolinsky Sable brushes on 270g dove grey Maya-card, precisely 2012, 13 ½ ins

Amongst the other collections that impressed was a passionate collection, beautifully displayed with dripped blood-red wax, of yellow gold and red garnet jewellery by Qingqing (Sasha) Wu.

A set of luxury, handmade watches by Sophie E Ellis showed that some of the traditional skills are still respected. Impressively too, this was just the second time in the last 20 years that the intricacies of watch-making have (successfully) been attempted by a student.

The CSM degree shows are still open to the public until 21st June and, if you can visit, they are highly recommended and not inconvenient at all.

Diamond jewellery lovers planning to visit London this summer should make a note to visit this year's annual Summer Opening of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace.

Following on from last year's spectacular exhibition of exquisite Fabergé eggs and other objects, a new exhibition "Diamonds: A Jubilee Celebration" will showcase diamond jewellery from the royal collections spanning from over three centuries. The centrepiece of the exhibition is the Cullinan Diamond, a copy of which is pictured above, the most famous and largest diamond ever found.

The Cullinan Diamond was discovered in 1905 in South Africa and was presented to King Edward VII by the Transvaal Government. Weighing around 3,105 metric carats before being cut into a number of smaller diamonds, the Cullinan diamond remains the largest rough diamond ever found. It was insured for $1.25m before being discreetly sent to England in a plain box by registered post so as to outwit any interested thieves.

The difficult and precise task of cutting of the stone was performed by famed diamond expert Joseph Asscher in Amsterdam, who unfairly is said to have fainted when his first attempt at cleaving the stone failed and the blade broke. With new tools the Cullinan was finally split and then cut and polished into 9 principal diamonds named Cullinan I-IX and 96 smaller brilliant cut diamonds.

Cullinan I and II, also known as the First and Second Star of Africa, were respectively set in the Sovereign's Royal Sceptre and the band of the Imperial State Crown worn at the Queen's coronation.

Together as the centrepieces of the Crown Jewels, they are two of the most famous diamonds in the world and can be seen by visitors at the Tower of London's new display of Crown Jewels. The remaining seven diamonds Cullinan III-IX were set into a variety of brooches, rings and a pendant for Queen Mary, wife of George V, and are being displayed together for the first time in this new exhibition of royal diamond jewellery.

"Diamonds: A Jubilee Celebration" opens on 30th June and runs through to 7th October 2012. Admission is only possible as part of the entry to the State Rooms at the Palace, which includes the Throne Room, the Ballroom and other state reception rooms. Be sure to book early as admission does usually sell out at least several days in advance and interest this year, with the Queen's Jubilee and the Olympics, will be particularly high.

Europe's luxury jewellers unveiled their latest collections last week at Baselworld 2012, the biggest watch and jewellery event in the world.

Baselworld started as a watch fair and, now in its 40th year, is the premier luxury show for European retailers and brands alike. Over 100,000 exhibitors, visitors and press attended this year to announce new products and discover new trends. With nine Maserati sports cars parked enviably last week in a row outside the luxury watch Hall, our expectations were set high.

For any visitor to Baselworld, the show can remain a daunting one. Cavernous halls are filled with temporary structures of glass and marble that in some instances reach three stories high. Luxury watch brands such as Patek Phillipe, Rolex, Breguet and Chopard showcase their newest timepieces alongside jewellery creations from Fabergé, De Grisogono, and Mikimoto. The atmosphere is busy, but serious and hushed too. The success of the event here sets the tone for many in the watch and jewellery calendar.

If you are interested in the latest developments in jewellery then the prestige jewellers of Hall 2 or the specialist gemstone and pearl merchants of Hall 3 should be your first stop. The UK representation was low-key, with the stand-out for us being the characteristically edgy and spectacular designs of Stephen Webster.

Amongst the displays of the specialist pearl dealers, there were the first signs of the new larger nucleated Freshwater Edison pearls that are starting to emerge from China. This new type of pearl represents a real advancement in culturing technology, with Freshwater pearls starting to reach a size of as much as 15mm in diameter. There were a number of vivid pink strands on display, an amazing natural colour that is oddly striking when first seen. We will cover this type of pearl later in our Journal, but it will be very interesting to see how they are received over the coming year, particularly as their quality improves further.

Baselworld is scheduled slightly later next year from April 25 to May 2, 2013, due to the exhibition area being expanded, and is open to luxury-loving members of the public as well as retailers.

This Sunday 18th March in the UK is Mothers Day, a day to be unreservedly sentimental about a mother's love.

There can be few better reminders of the wonderful relationship between a mother and her children than Scottish novelist J.M. Barrie's classic description from Peter Pan:

"Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers.

You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on."

Peter Pan by J.M.Barrie (1860-1937)

 

Barrie was born as the ninth of 10 children in a weaver's family in Kirriemuir, Scotland. His grateful relationship with his mother was a close one that continued to inspire his writing throughout his life.

Celebrate your own unique relationship this Mother's Day with a gift of a classic pearl, a gem that is loved for its captivating beauty and elegance.

Fashion lovers at London Fashion Week 2012 were treated this week to the Rock Vault, a celebration of some of the most inventive and eclectic jewellery design that Britain has to offer.

LFW is the vibrant setting for the launch of the new Autumn/Winter 2012 fashion collections. Somerset House was buzzing with around 5,000 visitors attending 100 shows from established and emerging designers. Alongside London debuts by Stella McCartney and McQ by Alexander McQueen, with an extravagant catwalk floor carpeted with fallen leaves, were bold colours and patterns, classic elegance and warm seasonal colours.

Rock Vault is a new initiative that has been set up to help promote the best of Britain’s fine jewellery design. Ten jewellers, selected by the British Fashion Council, curator Stephen Webster and the International Palladium Board, were offered an enviable chance to showcase their A/W 2012 jewellery collections.

The selected designers were Alexandra Jefford, Fernando Jorge, Hannah Martin, Hillier, Husam El Odeh, Jo Hayes Ward, Jordan Askill, Melanie Georgacopoulos, Sophie Bille Brahe and Tomasz Donocik. Also featured in the exhibition tent that overlooked the Thames were five bold jewellery design concepts cast in the precious metal Palladium by students from Central Saint Martins, London.

As the main events of LFW were winding down, we visited the Vault to discover its installations. It was inspiring to see the new developments in Fernando Jorge’s Fluid Diamonds collection and we love these supple pieces shown in combination with some unusual gemstones such as the apple-green Brazilian Chrysoprase.

There were also some striking jewellery designs with pearls by Melanie Georgacopoulos, playfully enclosing pearls in 18ct gold diamond and emerald cages, and Alexandra Jefford, whose modern pieces are inspired by architecture, nature and some fabulously metallic freshwater pearls.

A brilliant setting to showcase the jewellery talent in London, the Vault undoubtedly rocked this year.

Congratulations to Fyodor Golan and Sophie Breitmeyer for their recent success in Fashion Fringe 2011 at London Fashion Week!

Fashion Fringe is an annual competition to find young talented designers and help launch them onto the London fashion scene. Judged by a distinguished panel of industry professionals drawn from the creative, media and retail worlds of fashion, including Anne Pitcher of Selfridges, Claudia Schiffer and Roy Peach, of the London College of Fashion. The three finalists were asked to present their creative, and experimental, work at a tense Fashion Fringe catwalk event at Somerset House, London that took place as part of London Fashion Week this September.

The winner was Fyodor Golan, a design duo consisting of Fyodor Podgorny and Golan Frydman who met in London after studying at the prestigious schools of Istituto Marangoni, London and The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp. Previously working with Alexander McQueen, Raf Simmons, Richard Nichol and Issey Miyake, they launched their own label in 2010 fusing their imaginative approach with beautiful hand detailing, leather scarring and the manipulation of fabric.

For the Fashion Fringe catwalk, Fyodor Golan collaborated with Sophie Breitmeyer who designed four collars specifically for the show. These brass sculptures, detailed with petals and hummingbirds, mirror perfectly the complex patterns and weaves of the Fyodor Golan work.

The new collection of pearl jewellery designed by Sophie Breitmeyer will debut in the next few weeks. We can't wait to show you them.

London's international jewellery fair IJL 2011 took place this week, with a glittering array of gems and design talent. This four day event is a highlight of the year, with the season's new jewellery being showcased to trade buyers for the first time.

Pearls seemed to be as popular as ever this year with designers inspired by in fashion trends for modern vintage, hints of colourful gemstones such as rubies and Art Deco styling.

This beautiful ring named Enchanted caught our eye, with its sweep of diamonds giving way to a gorgeous Tahitian Pearl. It is designed by Andrew Geoghegan, an award winning designer of contemporary engagement rings based in the UK. If you like this, be sure to also have a look at his stunning fire opal Satellite cocktail ring, which won the Editor's Choice Award for Visual Impact at IJL.

Elsewhere in the show, it was good to see work by Fernando Jorge and Hattie Rickards being recognised in the Bright Young Gems gallery. Chosen by a panel of leading industry editors and experts including Hilary Alexander of The Daily Telegraph and Vivienne Becker of the FT’s How To Spend It, this initiative gives future design stars a prestigious platform to showcase their work.

Fernando Jorge's flowing and organic jewellery is highly sensual, using individually cut Brazilian stones to create his unusual and ambiguous pieces such as his Fluid Chandelier earrings.

Hattie Rickards studied jewellery design at Central Saint Martins before moving back from New York to launch her own brand. Her first collection features ethical gold, roughcut stones and spinning barrels of gems and, as with the pieces by Andrew Geoghegan and Fernando Jorge, also embodies forms of movement and kinetics.

These were just a few of the highlights for us. A great event this year with much to admire...