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Bold gold jewellery is demanding your attention. Oversized link bracelets, neck chains and doorknocker earrings are all re-emerging as revamped classics, perhaps as a palate cleanser to the vogue for coloured gemstones, or perhaps as part of a historical trend for buying gold in uncertain times.
Modern offerings come from Lugano’s lavish heavy-link necklace, Cassandra Goad’s lilting, amorphous chains or the golden orbs of Solange Azagury-Partridge’s Solar bracelet. In Cartier’s new Libre Polymorph collection, pure abstract forms are expressed in gold, Bucherer’s new Link collection casts gold in clean, paperclip-style loops, while Prada’s Eternal Gold jewellery plays with the brand’s signature triangle, along with classic heart and serpent motifs, all accented with lab-created diamonds.
London-based Annoushka last year released its first handcrafted solid-gold collection, Knuckle, which was designed to fill a hole in creative director Annoushka Ducas’s own jewellery wardrobe. “I wanted a lovely, plain gold chain, not embellished, quite classic, bold, heavy, that could be layered and that would take our pendants or charms.” She worked with artisans in Arezzo, Italy, whose handcrafted chains are made with clasps at either end so they can be worn separately, joined into a long necklace, wrapped around the wrist or converted into a lariat. “I love the versatility of a gold chain, and so do our clients.”
It was an Italian, the Sicilian aristocrat Fulco di Verdura, who helped bring sun-yellow gold back into fashion after the cool platinum and diamonds of the ’30s, when he opened his private salon in New York in 1939. He became the favourite jeweller to the social and fashion elite, with his classic flattened-curb-link chain bracelet epitomising the Park Avenue look. It was worn by Greta Garbo, first in 1941 in publicity shots for her film Two-Faced Woman, and then so often afterward that it became her style signature. The Garbo curb chain has evolved into a necklace and earclips, and works well with Verdura’s other classics, such as the gold-caged pearl earclips, which were a favourite of Diana, Princess of Wales. Verdura also worked gold into twisted nautical-inspired rope-link chains, in a style that defined jewellery of the ’50s and ’60s.
The massive, hand-hammered, burnished gold jewels of David Webb, another legendary American jeweller of the ’60s, were shaped by ancient artefacts – and beloved of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor and other society and Hollywood names. Webb’s wide cuffs, long, heavy sautoirs, monumental cocktail rings and doorknocker earrings were opulent yet light-spirited: jewellery to wear from day into evening. Today the company recreates Webb’s designs for a new audience.
The handmade Italian chains of Milan-based jewellery brand Pomellato, founded by Pino Rabolini in 1967, were also designed to capture the spirit and freedom of the ’60s. Creative director Vincenzo Castaldo calls the Catene chain, still hand-wrought by specialist in-house artisans, “the calligraphy of Pomellato”. The house has also reimagined its original chain creations via the Iconica bracelet and multilayered draped necklace, along with chain-link earrings, rings and bangles.
Tiffany’s HardWear collection, which is adapted from an archival design from 1971, plays with mechanistic components, ball bearings and tubing, and references the industrial core and rebellious beat of ’60s-’70s New York. The gold neck chain, with its sturdy connectivity, is fast turning into a cult favourite, and is perfect for layering or contrasting with a chunky Peretti bone cuff – an icon of ’70s design.
For designer-goldsmith Hannah Martin, gold represents an altogether different kind of glamour. “The first time I touched gold, I fell in love with its magic and energy. It’s decadent and it’s what I want to wear.” Her hands are dressed in her Delirium Arc and Orbit rings, her wrists cuffed with her Shackle bangle. She describes her punk-inspired A New Act of Rebellion collection as “battle dress”; certainly there’s an element of danger in her heroic gold jewels.
A panoply of all-gold jewels can be mixed, layered and stacked to make the look your own. All you need is a pair of oversized shades, à la Kennedy Onassis, to soften the glint of so much glorious gold.
Special thanks to Oscar Ancliffe and Andy Huq