Place Vendôme · Paris, since 1780
Chaumet
Jeweller to Napoleon and Empress Joséphine, Chaumet has made diadems for two centuries and still thinks in their terms: aigrettes, wheat ears, a pear-cut stone rising from a crown. At 12 Place Vendôme since 1907, it draws nature tidy and graphic: a bee reduced to its honeycomb, hydrangea florets in opal, a ribbon crossed into an X.
The conversation
Chaumet answering
- Between the Finger
Liens after Between the Finger, Van Cleef & Arpels
Five years after Van Cleef set two motifs face to face across two fingers, Chaumet drew the tie between two people as a crossed ribbon.
Liens after Jean Schlumberger by Tiffany Sixteen Stone, Tiffany & Co.
Schlumberger stitched his diamonds in place with little gold Xs; Liens makes the crossed X the whole sign.
Torsade de Chaumet after B.zero1, Bulgari
Chaumet also spirals after a monument: the frieze winding up the Vendôme Column, itself modelled on Trajan's in Rome.
- Tulle
Bee de Chaumet after Tulle, Buccellati
Chaumet builds a whole line on the hexagonal cell, the honeycomb set side by side into bands, hoops and pavé.
Answered by other houses
Pomellato Together, Pomellato after Liens
Together draws the tie between two people as Liens did, now as two gold ellipses held by one wrapped link.