Designer Valerie Messika of Messika Paris has unveiled a high jewelry collection that places exquisite fancy-shape diamonds in a series of earrings and rings that collectively capture themes of balance and imbalance, symmetry and asymmetry, gravity, motion, and equal, opposite reactions.
Titled Voltige—the French word for “acrobatics”—the collection is held aloft by a sense of weightlessness and kinetic energy. Messika has taken the idea of important diamond jewelry and stripped it of heavy metal and decorative flourishes. What remains: stones that appear to be floating in space, gliding or somersaulting in the air, or alighting on the ear or body with a soft caress—sometimes with marked precision and grace, sometimes slightly off-kilter, artfully askew.
Subcollections nod to the art (and shapes) of trapeze, aerial dancers careening in space, tightrope walkers toying with the physics of balance and equilibrium, the way a ballerina defies gravity from the tip of her pointe shoe, and the discreet magic of optical illusions.
A few of these intriguing ideas are presented below.
Top, from left: Trapezistes ring; Illusionistes asymmetrical earrings with 7.86 cts. t.w. in 18k white gold; and close-up of Bascules heart-shape diamond hoop; prices on request. (Ring and hoop photos: Pierre Vérez)
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