6 rising Parisian independent jewellery brands to watch: how Mira Stella, Lucas Bauer, Viltier, Statement, Gemmyo and Maison Avani are all making a name for themselves
Paris’ Place Vendôme is home to many historic maisons, but across the city, entrepreneurial independent jewellers are springing up to offer fresh visions
Paris’ Place Vendôme may be the home of high jewellery, but this rarefied world is only the glittering tip of the city’s iceberg of gem-filled creativity.
Under the waterline, a new generation of independent labels is rising, ready to bring their colour-filled designs, and inspirations that range from the natural world to art movements like art deco or Brutalism, into the light.
Here are six names who are setting the pace in Paris’ independent jewellery scene.
1. Mira Stella
The soil around Sophie Bouilhet-Dumas’ family home in Normandy is fertile indeed. Not only does it support verdant countryside, but it also sprouted Mira Stella, a fine jewellery brand named after the founder’s mother and grandmother.
Where others might have seen ephemeral beauty in nature, she saw treasures that transcended the ages. And since Bouilhet-Dumas is also a scion of the family that founded silversmith Christofle, it felt natural to reproduce the likes of hydrangea petals, sea kale seeds and flax pods in 18k gold.
Oak bark, chicory petals and heart-shaped quaking grass, a plant in the same family as wheat and rice, have since joined Mira Stella’s repertoire. Snippets of botanical information accompany each piece on the website, but if you are in the area, make sure to visit the brand’s boutique, a delightful ray of pink, warm light tucked away in the picturesque streets of Paris’ Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
2. Lucas Bauer
Nature also influences the work of Lucas Bauer. Not surprisingly, considering he credits a parrotfish encountered while diving as changing the course of his career after nine years spent designing jewellery and accessories in the women’s fashion studio of Louis Vuitton.
This graduate of the famed École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne learned jewellery design on the job, aided by the idea that the precision and planning of patternmaking could be applied to his new medium.
For his eponymous label, Bauer’s inspirations are now found in deeper places: underground in mycelium, the fungal network that permeates our soil; or below the waves for algae. These tie into his idea that all things are connected and united, ourselves included, which is why his jewellery curls around the body organically.
Bauer made his Paris Fashion Week debut with a range that included fine jewellery designs made from recycled gold and stones sourced from existing stock.