Not only is Awakened Hands Awakened Minds Louis Vuitton's biggest high-jewellery collection, with 220 jewels divided into 13 themes, but it also offers staggering feats of technical prowess and design that packs a punch.
Awakened Hands Awakened Minds is Artistic Director Francesca Amfitheatrof's sixth high jewellery collection for the famous Parisian luxury house. Shunning pastiche and nostalgia, it is architectural, monumental, and unflinchingly innovative. The clean lines of each jewel offer a crystal-clear vision of the way ahead for Louis Vuitton high jewellery. The complexity of each jewel is an integral part of the design; its mechanics are exalted, not hidden. Such is the intricacy of each piece, that the larger necklaces have taken thousands of hours to complete.
Amfitheatrof is going full steam and tearing through the landscape of high jewellery with the same boldness that inspired Paris in the great age of invention and enlightenment in 19th century Paris, transforming a mediaeval city into Haussmann's gleaming white, ordered vision of the future. Awakened Hands Awakened Minds pulses with the heady rush of optimism in the future, the same impulse that dared to create the Eiffel Tower and transform the nation with the wondrous engineering of the steam locomotive. Awakened Hands, Awakened Minds refers to the revival of handcrafts and a return to daring inventiveness.
"France in the 19th century was a phenomenal time of incredible change, and when Paris really became the centre of the world," says Francesca Amfitheatrof, Artistic Director for Watches and Jewellery. "The design language of Awakened Hands and Awakened Minds reflects that—all its intricacies, complications, and innovations—turned into incredible jewels."
In 1837, the 16-year-old Louis Vuitton arrived in Paris from the provinces and built up his luggage business, including never-before-seen stacking flat–top trunks swathed in his distinctive Damier pattern to avoid counterfeiting. "Craftsmanship becomes the currency of this country. It is the birth of France's Art de Vivre – and the birth of what we know as luxury today," says Amfitheatrof, who captures the renaissance of Parisian excellence in the jewels.
The pièce de résistance is the Apotheosis: Coeur de Paris necklace (above) that celebrates the Eiffel Tower. Built in 1889 and conceived as a temporary structure, it was the highest building in the world at the time and the most audacious structure of the Exposition Universelle complex. "Imagine you are standing underneath the Tour Eiffel and looking up," explains Amfitheatrof. "You're really looking up at the heart of Paris." This interpretation of the iron tower features a 56.23-carat deep-brown pink square-cut diamond in a grid of gold rods and struts.
The Victoire necklace (above) is a more literal interpretation of the tower, its arches, joists, beams and platforms rendered in a honeycomb of gold open-work. A 15.16-carat DIF Monogram Flower cut diamond is suspended from the inverted apex of the tower, evoking the awe the original tower inspires.
The Elegance tiara's (above) graphic, compact, interlocking patterns hark back to the dawn of mechanisation and its unstoppable, world-changing power. A Monogram Star cut diamond set en tremblant delicately shivers at the top, juxtaposing the force and frailty that make human progress.
The textiles woven in the newly industrialised factories of Paris are captured in the Phenomenal (above) rouleau-style necklace, which perfectly mimics the undulation of the warp and weft of fabric in gold, platinum, and diamonds. A 5.07-carat Zambian emerald sits like a button at the heart of the voluminous collar.
The awe-inspiring Séduction necklace (above) combines decorative arts with industry's heavy lifting. The sumptuous passementerie work of brocade, jacquard, and tassels creates an intricate yet geometrically rigorous diamond-spangled mesh choker bound top and bottom with a thick gold cord that echos the sturdy ropes used to haul Vuitton trunks onto steamer ships.
The dizzying transformation of mechanisation adds electric appeal to the Perception necklace (above). Thick diamond-set chevrons are stacked to form a high collar that captures the illusion of speed and dynamism; two impressive sapphires cool down the tempo. The Frequency necklace continues the theme of the speed of modernity with the hypnotic repetition of the house's flower motif created in a paving of diamonds that hums with the optimism of industrial progress.
An outstanding piece is the Vision necklace (above), which directly references the arrival of the age of the railway. At first glance, the bib-style necklace appears to be a striking geometric arrangement of diamonds and yellow sapphires. Look again, and the 'V' of Vuitton and the metal rivets of its trunks create shimmering tracks that race around the neck, reminiscent of steam trains. The necklace took five jewellers 2,504 hours to make.
Amfitheatrof has seized the fervour of Paris's golden era, when the city was a powerhouse of innovation, creativity, and craft, and has transformed the zeitgeist of the era into the most modern jewels.
