Citrines are the birthstone of November, a colour so warmly replicated in nature as the trees take on their golden autumn mantle. It is a colour and a gemstone that featured strongly in jewellery collections shown at PAD the Design and Decorative Arts Fair in October as were many other warm toned gemstones. The glowing colours of amber, spessartite and mandarin, the darker coloured spessartite garnet, brown tourmalines and zircons, cognac diamonds and more are not a palette we see too often but have inspired designers anew with exciting results.
Hemmerle presented polished toffee-coloured antique amber beads that are wonderfully tactile and pairs of citrine or brown zircon earrings, the latter paired with satin and olive wood settings. Boghossian’s signature flame-like silhouette set alight the pair of Golden Ember amber earrings from their Palace Voyages collection.
Amber is fossilised tree resin and is one of the oldest materials used in jewellery. This is reflected in the way Glenn Spiro marries history with contemporary design for his antique amber jewels. One piece embraced its roots in classical antiquity as a torque from which five amber beads with gold Baoulé decoration from West Africa were suspended.
Similarly delving into the past was Elie Top. His Dame du Lac Avalon cuff featured an impressive cabochon citrine set on darkened silver and gold resembling a precious medieval piece of armour. It’s a collection in which Top references the poetic romanticism of Aubrey Beardsley and the Pre-Raphaelites.
Flaming oranges like mandarin and spessartite garnets and orange sapphire glowed on jewels from Dries Criel and Dyne (both at PAD) to high jewellery pieces from Gucci and Bulgari recently shown in London. The entire collection by the former ballet dancer from Belgium, Dries Criel, blazed with orange and brown gemstones including a brandy-coloured brown tourmaline ring and spessartite earrings decorated with reddish enamel and diamonds.
British-Italian designer Sarah Ysabel Narici creates an ancient meets avant-garde style for her New York brand Dyne, combining veined jade with big colourful stones, notably a mandarin garnet set in carnelian, to enhance its fire. Mandarin garnets have also gained fans amongst high jewellery maisons that love to play with colour combinations, notably Gucci and Bulgari.
Orange gemstones are sublime paired with emeralds which are almost opposite on the colour spectrum and so Gucci made that connection on a pair of earrings with mandarin garnets and emeralds in their Labirinti high jewellery collection. These fiery garnets appeared on rings as well as a heart-shaped centrepiece on a spectacular necklace.
Meanwhile Bulgari has some winning combinations with carnelian and diamonds in their Diva collection and as large pear-shaped mandarin garnets paired with amethyst and turquoise that is a new addition to this year’s Aeterna collection and perfect for autumn.
