Style Edit: For eternity – Boucheron’s Quatre 5D Memory ring is embedded with data that can endure for billions of years
The French jewellery house has a special something embedded in its Quatre 5D Memory – a recollection of a childhood by the ocean, in the form of audio data
In the year that Boucheron celebrates the 20th anniversary of its iconic Quatre ring, it conjures a statement edition, embedded with cutting-edge technology and designed to be treasured for centuries to come.
The Quatre 5D Memory ring is a timeless (literally) capsule creation that reflects with extraordinary brilliance the French luxury jeweller’s dual influences – historical authority melded with audacious innovation. Through an audio artwork cocooned within the mesmerising light of its ultra-modern material, the jewel captures a precious past memory of the ocean – one that will endure for future generations who hold the key to its secret.
The memory and the ingenuity for this visionary feat are supplied by Boucheron creative director Claire Choisne, whose childhood was spent within sight and sound of the Atlantic Ocean. She chose to inscribe the irresistible surge of the ocean waves, which have long inspired her, within this remarkable new Quatre ring.
In a high jewellery first, the maison has harnessed the power of 5D memory, an optical storage process for digital data, into the very fabric of its designs. An ultra-fast nanostructuring technique invented by Peter Kazansky enables the encoding of huge quantities of information – in this case, sound in binary form – in nanostructured glass using a femtosecond laser, where it can potentially remain for billions of years.
For this purpose, the Quatre ring has been recreated in Glassomer, a fusion of high-purity glass silica. This avant-garde material casts dazzling new light on the collection’s distinctive aesthetics, whereby four bands imbued with the house’s historic codes come together as one. The radiant optical properties of Glassomer enhance the stunning circles and patterns of the Double Godron, the Clou de Paris and the grosgrain ribbed bands that nod to the Parisian jeweller’s heritage. The other code, a delicate band of diamonds, retains its precious nature, mirror-set in white gold.
Through the wonders of 5D engraving, the Quatre 5D Memory ring is able to hold up to 100 megabytes of data, which can be translated back into its original format using polarised light illumination. Fittingly, the audio artwork – a stirring oceanic score developed by Boucheron in collaboration with the Paris-based Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music – is secreted within one of the brand’s beloved Clou de Paris motifs.
The evocative composition premiered at two exclusive events held in New York and Paris this autumn, where guests were treated to an immersive sound experience during the unveiling of the capsule that embraces these cadences. As the maison’s CEO Hélène Poulit-Duquesne says, “Quatre 5D Memory perfectly embodies Boucheron’s vision of pushing boundaries. By succeeding in encapsulating an audio work within a jewellery design, we are exploring new territories of expression and opening up limitless realms of possibility. The ring becomes the vessel that holds a memory, an emotion, that is given to future generations.”