After two world wars, Modernism was reborn again. It was another chance. This is a story of the 20th century, of heaven and hell and how in the hands of a new generation of artists and jewellery-makers, great ideals were reflected in astonishing new approaches to metalwork - refracted across floating and luminous stones. And what, if anything, remains of these interwar and post-war jeweller-artists? "Perhaps what we should rehabilitate today is not beauty, but good craftsmanship: art as hard work. You have to study, to learn how to do it. Craftsmanship. That's what I admire today."

"When the Arts & Crafts Castrated William Morris" - Arts and Crafts. From conception it was a socialist movement, but ended up - to quote Art Historian Alan Crawford - “a bohemian gentleman’s club, smokey and exclusive” where “a narrow and tiresome aristocracy” was to be found “working with great skill for the very rich”. And moreover, “working women showed no interest”.  So how exactly did the Arts and Crafts - the New Love - castrate Mr Morris? Find out in our latest blog post. We take a deep dive into the movement and we find out how a language that may have begun in bohemian men’s socialist clubs (and echo chambers) was transformed into an international vehicle for the empowerment and liberation of working women.   

It evokes opulence and extravagance, but the claw is quite plainly mounted (in silver, sure but still), nothing too fancy. A contradiction. So who would have made this… worn this… and why?

  What follows is, in part, a concise biography of the life and works of Alessandro Castellani. It is also a brief account of the unification of Italy and some ideologies at play; ideologies which, while seemingly emancipatory, laid the groundwork for 20th century Italian and European fascism; ideologies which visibly fed back into the astonishing craftsmanship of Castellani.   

ROME, 1930: an Italian jeweller and businessman of great renown passes away. In accordance with his will, his family’s estate - extensive archives and research, and a formidable collection of jewellery and historical artefacts - is bequeathed to the Italian state...  But would the previous owners of the firm - Alfredo’s grandfather, (Fortunato Pio), his uncle, (Alessandro), and his father, (Augusto) - have turned in their graves at the thought?   …Or would they have made the same bequest?  

In the West and in the East, in spirituality and in the lab, the cosmos is within us.  Here, Cartier and Van Cleef, Edmond Halley and Jodie Foster (yes, Jodie Foster) come together as we remember: "We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself".  So come and star gaze. Watch as the cosmos reaches down to us and reemerges transformed into precious adornments, each one a story about our place in that awesome and humbling night sky. Enjoy the finale of Season 1 of the Starstuff Stories. Enjoy the Celestial Collection.

"Gold is the most precious of all commodities; gold constitutes treasure, and he who possesses it has all he needs in this world, has also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory, and restoring them to the enjoyment of paradise", said Christopher Columbus in a letter to the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. Let us follow Columbus, and others who came after him, deep into a blue-green world of legend and half-forgotten gods. But gold meant very different things to very different people: to the Europeans, what was scarce was valuable, gold was scarce, so gold was valuable. But to the Mesoamericans, what was scarce was meaningful; gold was scarce; so gold was meaningful. The Gold Collection is a search for meaning. The sun god follows, around the circle of the universe, the eternal serpent’s path through the cosmos. In this ancient world, meanings abound…

Cartier, Fabergé, Tiffany & Co; Spanish Monarchs, Napoleon Bonaparte, and British Colonies in southern Africa; and galaxy-sized fireworks displays in deep space... The first collection in "The Starstuff Stories" tells the tale of how an unremarkable discovery in a river in Colombia, not only inspired some of the most extraordinary jewellery-making in the last 150 years, but even led to profound questions about the universe itself...    The astronomer Carl Sagan famously said “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself”.    Is jewellery, perhaps, one of the most elegant expressions of this knowing, of Sagan's 'cosmic introspection'?