Jewelry

A Centuries-Old Jewelry House Brings Out Its First Collection - New York Times

The revolution is underway. That it is happening so quietly is unusual for the times but typical of the designer, Emmanuel Aubry, 50, who was appointed in January. Self-effacing and clean-cut, with salt-and-pepper hair, a riot of tattoos and an affinity for Comme des Garçons shirts, Mr. Aubry is a 30-year fashion veteran with a sly wit and a low threshold for fashion’s superficial side.

“Landing at Arthus-Bertrand is like inheriting a chateau that was built over different eras,” he said. “It’s beautiful but different, everything works and nothing needs tearing down. The only questions are, which is the front door and how do you live in it now?”

The first step, Mr. Aubry believes, is to let the house breathe. “When you come from a long history and are about to embark on a new one that should last as long, that’s the first thing that has to happen,” he said.

In that vein, the house is taking a cue from the designer Azzedine Alaïa and giving itself the luxury of time: Jewelry will be released when it’s ready and not according to a fashion calendar. The challenge will be to reconcile past and present. New stories must flow easily from history, neither overly venerating the past nor diluting it and being fashionable without skewing too “fashion.”

It helps that Mr. Aubry had a feel for the place already. While working for Thierry Mugler in the early 1990s, he created a jewelry collection in silver and semiprecious stones that was produced by Arthus-Bertrand. A decade later, he returned to its sprawling ateliers in Palaiseau, outside Paris, for a jewelry collection for Christian Lacroix.

As a freelancer, Mr. Aubry had lent a hand to fashion designers like Alexandre Vauthier and Bouchra Jarrar. In recent years, he worked with Patrick Goossens to bolster his family-run company, best known for originating the rock crystal sautoirs and Byzantine-inspired cuffs favored by Coco Chanel (Goossens was acquired by the Chanel fashion house in 2005).

Although jewelry, like fashion, reflects the times, for Mr. Aubry fashion is not the endgame. “The only thing that matters to me is that a jewel takes on a life of its own,” he said. “What doesn’t matter is whether anyone knows my name, because in my world it’s the jewel and the wearer — there’s no room for a designer between them.”

Mr. Aubry might as well be channeling the Arthus-Bertrand’s founders, two soldiers from the French Revolution — one an embroiderer of flags and military regalia, the other a geography and travel book publisher — whose business came into its own quietly in 1803 when Napoleon, short on funds, devised an economical way to reward his loyal soldiers: the Légion d’Honneur medal, still France’s highest honor.

For the 213 years since, the family-run business on the Left Bank has operated like a couture house, centralizing about 50 specialized métiers as varied as cutting, stamping and engraving metal and reperçage (cutting metal with the fineness of lace), sculpture in mother-of-pearl and grand feu enameling, a technique that has all but vanished.

As one of the last bastions of specialized metalwork in Europe, Arthus-Bertrand continues to serve tradition, producing medals, commemorative coins, decorations, trophies and ceremonial necklaces for monarchs, presidents and cultural institutions in 35 countries, from the Order of the British Empire for the United Kingdom to ceremonial swords for the “immortals” of the Académie Française. Prototyping is still done using 19th-century tools, such as a huge stamping press known as a mouton, or sheep.

For generations, prominent French families have also turned to Arthus-Bertrand for engraved family crests, signet rings and gifts on milestone dates. Today, christening medallions, Mother’s Day charms and the like account for 60 percent of the company’s $39 million annual business, making it the world’s leading jeweler in that category. Transforming inherited jewels into new pieces is another mainstay. Earlier this year, house craftsmen remounted an important octagonal emerald that could be traced to Catherine, Empress of Russia, who had it set in the brow band of her horse’s bridle.

Last month, Mr. Aubry’s first five sets of creations for Arthus-Bertrand landed in the jeweler’s 11 stores (10 in France, including three in Paris; plus one in Brussels). Of all the new pieces, only the Jazz silver ring, a modern iteration of a 19th-century style, nods to the archives. Elsewhere, spare lines have an almost Bauhaus slant. The limited-edition Jazz bracelet, a slice of silver pierced with balls of garnet, lapis lazuli, malachite or onyx, is anything but classic. Wide, bias-cut rings offer a twist on traditional bands (620 euros to 680 euros, or about $655 to $720). In lieu of white diamonds, fancy gray and Champagne hues wink on the St. Germain bracelet, a three-rung bangle worked from a single strand of gold ($3,185).

In one of his many notebooks, Mr. Aubry keeps a list of the projects, including more important pieces with precious stones, decorative objects, an exhibition, a book and reviving artist and designer collaborations (Arthus-Bertrand owns Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s first, scaled-down mold for the Statue of Liberty; past collaborators include François-Xavier Lalanne, Salvador Dalí, César and Hilton McConnico).

“The real magic of Arthus-Bertrand is that it has always been many things to many different kinds of people,” Mr. Aubry noted. “That’s its continuity. You should always be able to walk in, see something and say to yourself, ‘That’s mine.’ ”