Louis Vuitton's Awakened Hands, Awakened Minds High Jewelry for SCMP Style AOC Jewelry News

SCMP Style [South China Morning Post] [IG] September 2024 issue turns its attention to Louis Vuitton’s ‘Awakened Hands, Awakened Minds’ high jewelry collection.

The all Louis Vuitton fashions are styled by Brit Cato for models Biliny Mabil and Myriam Chenesseau. Photographer Marco Cella [IG] captures the high-minded jewelry in all its splendor. / Hair by Anne Sofia Begtrup; makeup by Anga Borodina

Artistic director Francesca Amfitheatrof’s sixth high jewelry collection for Louis Vuitton honors the maison’s French roots and its great craftsmen who melded innovation with a deep respect for French history and culture.

The first chapter — ‘Awakened Hands’ — is comprised of 100 unique pieces inspired by an important moment in world history. The French Revolution of 1789 brought down the Monarchy and the ancien régime, resulting in the beheading of King Louis XVI and his famous wife, Marie Antoinette.

With the end of royal court rule in France, artisans were free to explore their own creativity and ‘savoir faire’. This cultural explosion in artisan experimentation and free-thinking — coupled with an expanding wealthy clientele supporting their efforts — greeted 16-year-old Louis Vuitton when he arrived in Paris in 1837.

The second chapter of the new high jewelry collection— ‘Awakened Minds’ — embraces ideas of industrialization, mechanization, graphic repetition and balanced geometry.

In a very real sense, Paris was the center of this European awakening and the gradual but definitive secularization that accompanied it.

Explore the ‘Awakened Hands, Awakened Minds’ collection on the Louis Vuitton website.