How jewellery brands are helping to preserve traditional crafts, from Dior and Van Cleef & Arpels to Buccellati and Cindy Chao The Art Jewel

Craft specialists are indispensable to the world’s luxury jewellery brands but their traditional skills in translating a designer’s idea into a jewelled masterpiece are disappearing. Different skills are required, each with its own specialist, to turn a design into reality – from the sculpting and casting of the gold to the stone setting and polishing.

Jewels may require goldsmiths with extra skills like forming the fine filigree work seen in Dolce & Gabbana’s alta gioielleria; engravers such as those at Buccellati to produce their distinctive cuffs or enamellers to decorate the dials of haute horology watches. For sculptural pieces, Cindy Chao, founder of her eponymous jewellery brand Cindy Chao The Art Jewel, and the craftspeople at Van Cleef & Arpels use the 18th century technique of cire perdue, meaning lost wax, where they sculpt wax into the desired shapes and figures before they are cast in metal and then transferred to the stone-setters.

There are other specialists like glypticians at Dior to carve precious stone into little animals for Victoire de Castellane’s Diorama & Diorigami high jewellery collection, as well as craftsmen to set the precious gemstones and pavé setters who smother the metal with tiny diamonds. In addition, there are modern techniques where computer-aided design (CAD), laser machines and 3D printers are appearing in workshops.

The fear in the industry however is that these skills are disappearing as young people choose careers in other fields. “We’re in a culture that pursues ‘speed’ in everything,” said Chao. “People generally lack patience, and fewer people are willing to invest time in learning traditional skills that require experience and time accumulation. For me, the most significant challenge in the development of jewellery craftsmanship is the decreasing interest of young people to patiently learn the traditional crafts of jewellery making.”

Nevertheless, designers and luxury brands realise that it is beholden on them to help preserve these crafts. Chao and Anna Hu, founder of Anna Hu Haute Joaillerie, were recently involved in projects at the Haute École de Joaillerie (HEJ) in Paris, a school where Dior has also implemented a training programme. Dior draws on students to work as jewellery apprentices in their workshops – one in Paris and eight jewellery apprentices in Lyon where HEJ also has a campus. Then there is the work of L’École Van Cleef & Arpels in sharing the jewellery culture with the public at large but also speaking at grass roots level with schoolchildren.

Working with 13 students over several months at HEJ this summer was a first for Hu. It was a design project based around the Chinese floral theme of The Chinese Four Gentlemen – the plum blossom, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum floral motifs – inspired by the artistic collections at the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts in Paris. The project was the museum’s celebration of the France-China 60th Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations with the designs exhibited at the Guimet in June, alongside Hu’s own high jewellery creations. With Hu’s support, designs created by the three finalists are going into production.

“Their work was exceptional; they are truly promising talents of the future,” said Hu who shared her expertise in design and craftsmanship to help the students shape their own interpretations and expressions. “I enjoyed the experience a lot – it definitely inspired me to see things from a younger generation’s perspective,” she reflected, explaining the project “is something I would continue to explore further”.

A believer in the need to nurture artistic growth, Chao last autumn held a week-long workshop at HEJ working with students to create a single sculptural object, rather than a jewel, using the French cire perdue technique of sculpting. As well as sharing her practical knowledge, Chao demonstrated how she explored the technique through her contemporary designs, which often include innovative materials, such as titanium, wood and French lacquer.