“There are many preconceived ideas about jewelry”

Jewelry is an attribute of power. It is exclusively feminine. Diamonds are forever. Sapphires are blue… The School of Jewelry Arts, which has tackled the clichés surrounding jewelry, stones and those who wear them, has published a collective work * breaking down nineteen false assertions. Meeting with two of the ten authors, Guillaume Glorieux, director of teaching at the School, and Emmanuelle Amiot, head of research.

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What is the genesis of this work?

William Glorious. – The idea came to me during the confinements in 2020 when I was looking for a unifying project for my team, at a time when we were all isolated. I wanted something that would allow us to continue working together. Taking advantage of this time away from the world seemed appropriate to reflect on preconceived ideas around jewelry, because there are so many of them! But they are not all necessarily completely wrong. Rather, it is a question of widely spread truths which become a sort of cliché, a commonplace, with an element of truth, but also of vagueness, even error. Our idea was to start from what people know and take them towards more precise, more rigorous knowledge, to elevate them, in the original meaning of the word “student”.

How did you go about selecting the nineteen preconceived ideas that make up the book?

GG – Everyone thought on their own, then we shared ideas and sorted them out. Some overlapped, others were almost identical or less relevant. We ultimately retained nineteen which constitute as many chapters. Then, in the editorial office, there was a lot of back and forth. Everyone reread their own texts, but also those of others. It’s a collective work, like a jewel! Which is also one of the preconceived ideas of the book that we are dismantling: “A piece of jewelry is the work of a single artist.”

What were the obvious misconceptions?

Emmanuelle Amiot. – The one that comes up most commonly is that the jewelry is frivolous. It’s a stubborn prejudice… And then there is also the fact that a piece of jewelry is expensive and precious. I wrote these two chapters with great pleasure! Firstly because the first constituted a mischievous message to those around me who did not really understand that, as an art historian, I am leaving my status as a specialist in painting to devote myself to jewelry… So it was necessary return to the origin. The first point, very significant and very interesting, is that jewelry exists in all societies. In different forms, with different materials, different practices. But we always find it and it is part of all aspects of society, that is to say the intimate sphere, as well as the social, political, religious spheres. And then, by trying to go back as far as possible to the origins, I learned – fascinated! – that archaeologists recently found jewelry in the Bizmoune cave in Morocco, near Essaouira. These small shells date from around 150,000 BCE, that is to say more than 100,000 years before the first known cave paintings! They therefore represent the first form of art, and perhaps even culture. At a time when we do not yet have articulated language, even less written language, this visual sign allows us to recognize ourselves, to display an identity. But this is what makes us human, what marks the transition from Neanderthal man toA wise man. So, I think we are really the opposite of frivolity!

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The chapter “Jewel is expensive and precious” also teaches us a lot about humanity!

EA – So the challenge was to think about what we mean by “dear and precious”. Expensiveness is a financial notion, but it is also an emotional notion, because what is expensive is also what is cherished. The subject was therefore to study this notion of symbolic value granted not only to the material, but also to the practices, to the know-how… It is fascinating, because certain materials which, for us today, are quite weakly desired therefore valued, have been enormously so in the past. Take glass beads, for example. They are no longer worth anything today, but were excessively expensive and adorned the most precious ornaments in Indonesia, in Venice… Like rhinestones, invented by George Frédéric Strass, who was also the jeweler of King Louis XV. The transition from the artisanal world to the industrial world, in the 19th century^e century, moved the lines a lot, in one direction or the other. Thus, aluminum, which has nothing precious nowadays, was very prized at the court of Napoleon III.

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So the value of jewelry has always fluctuated a lot?

EA – The notion of preciousness is indeed very relative. Ultimately, it is not always the rarity of a material that determines its price, but its cultural value. Thus, the Arts and Crafts movement, at the end of the 19th^e century, launched a very strong promotion of drawing. The jewel becomes an object of art. An idea taken up by Art Nouveau, but also with designer jewelry. Certain fashion pieces today, even in non-precious materials, can be as expensive on the secondary market as jeweled jewelry. Today, jewelry no longer has anything to prove to be recognized as a work of art. And the fact that it was on the fringes for so long, because of this classification of fine art, also allowed it in some cases to become a kind of counterculture.

How did you prioritize the questions?

GG – We wanted to follow the journey of a jewel. So, first the subjects and the stereotypes relating to them, with for example a chapter on “The pearl is born from a grain of sand”, which is completely false. Then, we approach the history of art, the history of jewelry, its social status (“Jewelry is an attribute of power”, “Jewelry is exclusively feminine”), false beliefs (“Opals bring bad luck )… We wanted to be multidisciplinary and cross paths. We are not the first to work on received ideas, Flaubert wrote a dictionary. He talks about all the subjects on life in society, but very little about jewelry… Except for the word “ring”, he writes that wearing it deforms the fingers!

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Your work moves from history to sociology, from science to marketing or philosophy… Why does jewelry involve so many subjects in your opinion?

GG – Quite simply because jewelry is a form of language, which all civilizations, in all eras, have appropriated. He embodies all aspects of a society, its best, but also its worst. It speaks of social, economic, political, religious, symbolic, intimate, romantic issues… Jewelery is eminently cultural, and this is the reason why it crystallizes received ideas. And also arouses more and more interest. Moreover, received ideas themselves are extremely fluctuating. If we picked up this book in twenty years, I’m sure we would do it differently. There would be other ideas, some would no longer have their reason for being in the book, and others would undeniably appear.

“Received ideas about jewelry”, under the direction of Guillaume Glorieux, editions Le Cavalier Bleu/L’École des arts joailliers, 276 p., €22.

Photographer Maona Micoud / production Belén Casadevall jewelry selection France by Jerphanion photo assistants Benjamin Markowitzc and Louison Boucly styling assistant Emie Dieudegard / model Zelda Adams casting Maria Pablo Feliz / hairdresser Sergio Villafane makeup Kamila Vay / manicure Leila Rerbal