OBJECT OF DESIRE

The Upcoming Celine Candles That Celebrate Memories

Ahead of their release in Australia later this year, T Australia worked our way through the new collection of Celine candles.

Article by Emma Mulholland

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Celine candles are available in Australia later this year ($160 each). Photography by Jess Ruby James.Celine candles are available in Australia later this year ($160 each). Photography by Jess Ruby James.

At Celine, it is the task of the maison’s waxmaker to re-create the perfumer’s vision. Himself a trained nose, the waxmaker blends waxes, oils and perfume concentrates in such a way that the ephemeral takes a solid form. Reproducing the notes is one thing; the challenge is to ensure that, with the flickering of a flame, they harmonise as the perfumer intended, capturing the dynamism that makes a scent exciting. Key to this is the diameter of the cotton wick.

A recent creation, Nightclubbing, takes its cue from Celine’s eau de parfum of the same name — a musky, nicotine-laced ode to late nights in Paris. It’s one of eight candles in the Haute Parfumerie collection, each inspired by the stirring scent memories of the house’s artistic director, Hedi Slimane. Pick of the bunch is Papiers Froissés, a cedar-and-fir nod to “the delicate luxury of writing paper”, and Tambour Noir, a smoky bourbon-and-leather blend that recalls the bar at Slimane’s Beverly Hills home (if you can’t have the bar and the Beverly Hills home, at least you can have the memories).

This is an extract from an article that appears in print in our fifth edition, Page 33 of T Australia with the headline:
“The Thing”
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A Ring Encapsulating Chanel No. 5 in Gem Form

The warm golden hue and floral notes that define the house’s most iconic fragrance inspired this bloom-like statement piece.

Article by Nancy Hass

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Chanel jewelleryPhotograph by Kyoko Hamada. Styled by Todd Knopke.

When Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel decided in 1920 to branch out from fashion to fragrance, she chose the fifth sample presented by her team of noses, a mélange of ylang-ylang from Madagascar, May rose and piquant jasmine grown in the southern French commune of Grasse.

The golden colour of Chanel No. 5, which could be seen through the simple square-corner glass bottle — designed to contrast with the ornate cut crystal vessels made by Lalique and Baccarat at the time — was almost as important as its bouquet.

That warm yellow hue and the dizzying waft of sillage in its wake were among the things that inspired Patrice Leguéreau, who directs the house’s fine jewellery studio, to render the radically modern scent in gem form. Resembling a flower exploding into bloom with a five-carat emerald-cut diamond as its luminous pistil and stamen, surrounded by a cascade of yellow sapphires and orange spessartite garnets, this captivating ring manages the impossible: turning the fleeting frisson of fragrance into an eternal object of desire. Chanel High Jewellery Golden Sillage ring, price on request, chanel.com

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A Foosball Table That Elevates the Level of Play

Louis Vuitton’s design includes a textured leather exterior and hand-painted, aluminum-cast players.

Article by Nancy Hass

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Louis Vuitton Le Babyfoot in Monogram Canvas. Photography by Florent Tanet.

Perhaps surprisingly for a game redolent of fraternity-house basements, foosball has a sophisticated and mysterious provenance. Referred to by the British, straightforwardly, as table football, and by the French, adorably, as le baby-foot (the term “foosball” comes from the German word for soccer), it was, by some accounts, created in the 1930s by a French automobile engineer, Lucien Rosengart. The Spanish anarchist and publisher Alejandro Finisterre also claimed to have invented futbolín while recovering from injuries sustained in the Spanish Civil War, and the Englishman Harold Searles Thornton filed a patent for a similar setup in 1923.

The French fashion and leather goods company , however, is less concerned with establishing the republic’s title to le baby-foot than in designing the most aesthetically pleasing version imaginable. Offered in seven different finishes, including leathers such as the brand’s textured in colors like cyan and pistachio, as well as the pictured here, the table’s hand-painted, custom-matched aluminum-cast players are modelled on the hotel porter character from Vuitton’s 1921 advertising campaign. Foosball’s origins may not be certain, but this is: You won’t find this particular amusement in the corner of some subterranean rec room. Louis Vuitton Le Babyfoot in Monogram Canvas, $97,000.

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The Emerald Pendant Plucked From a Designer’s Own Collection

To create a one-of-a-kind necklace, David Yurman accented a 31-carat, cushion-cut Colombian stone with a cascade of glittering diamonds.

Article by Nancy Hass

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David Yurman Stax emerald and diamond high jewellery necklace, davidyurman.com. Photography by Lauren Coleman. Styling by Todd Knopke.

David Yurman, originally a sculptor, founded his namesake jewellery business in New York with his painter wife, Sybil, four decades ago. Their son, Evan, now 39, began collecting unique precious stones in his 20s. Already working for the family firm by then (he’d designed his first piece for the brand, a pair of cufflinks, at age 11), Evan was obsessed with his rare gems — a 50-carat Kazakhstani spinel and a giant museum-quality opal from Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, among them.

“My parents thought I was insane, paying that much for single stones,” he says. He never made them into jewellery, but a few years ago, when the family moved into high jewellery to complement its more accessible designs, Evan, now the chief creative officer, realised it was at last time to part with some of his treasures. So far, he has designed nearly 20 pieces using his private stash, including this white-gold diamond chain necklace with a 31-carat Colombian emerald pendant. He had the gem reconfigured into an antique cushion cut, which contrasts with the modern setting. “It’s vulnerable for me to let these stones go because they’re so personal,” he says. “When they’re gone, they’re gone.”

David Yurman Stax emerald and diamond high jewellery necklace, davidyurman.com

A version of this article appears in print in our third edition, Page 49 of T Australia with the headline:
‘The Thing’
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A Psychedelic Reinterpretation of Medieval Wall Tapestries

The textile maker Maharam and the design firm 2×4 have conceived a vibrant wall covering that collapses time and space.

Article by Nancy Hass

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Photography by Nicholas Calcott. Set design by Todd Knopke.

Wall tapestries were commissioned by the Catholic Church in the 13th and 14th centuries to communicate Bible stories to the illiterate masses, but by the Renaissance, they had become aristocratic status symbols. When kings and nobles were defeated in battle, the victor often seized the huge, intricately woven textiles, with their scenes of conflict, village life and mythical beasts, and resized them to fit the walls of their own castles, where they served as both insulation and trophies. Now, Maharam, the textile maker that began at the turn of the 20th century as a fabric pushcart on the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, has reinterpreted the traditional craft. The company collaborated with the New York-based design firm 2×4, which took hundreds of public-domain images of tapestries from the 14th to the 16th centuries to create a three-by-six-metre digital collage titled “Tableau Vivant”. Maharam then digitally printed the panorama onto a cellulose and latex substrate that can be applied directly to a wall (smaller sections can be customised to fit any space). From a distance, the work appears to be a museum piece, but up close — where you can see peasants pasted next to unicorns and trees growing at strange angles — it collapses time and space with a psychedelic verve. Price upon request, maharam.com.

A version of this article appears in print in our second edition, Page 41 of T Australia with the headline:
“The Things”

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A Sensuous Necklace Inspired by the Intricacy of the Human Body

This deeply alluring, sinuous necklace from Hermès follows the simple lines of the skin and moves in harmony with the body.

Article by Hannah Warren

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Hermès Réseau lumière necklace. Price on application. Photography courtesy of Hermès.

Hermès’ creative director of jewellery, Pierre Hardy, is known for producing unexpected designs and the Lignes sensibles collection is no exception. With its name translating to “sensitive lines”, the 45-piece high jewellery collection was inspired by the shapes and movement of the human form.

The Hermès Réseau lumière necklace, pictured, imitates the intricate network of our circulatory system with its web of white gold strands studded with 356 sapphires in graduated shades of green-blue, purple, yellow-orange and pastel pink.

“I wanted to transcribe these interior areas, to sketch their design on the skin. I see these lines as radiating out from them. I like the idea that you can choose a different anatomy, reinvent an intimate sensory system, like a wave that is made visible and given form by jewellery,” Hardy said of the necklace that hugs the throat, collarbone and clavicle, in constant fluid motion with the wearer. “The entire collection is oriented towards intimacy… The pieces sit in places that are connected to desire, creating an eroticism that inevitably reinterprets the body.”

Photography courtesy of Hermès.
Photography courtesy of Hermès.

He refers to his desire for this collection to not just reflect the body but become one with it. “In my previous collections, the link with the body was achieved through metaphors such as the chain,” he said. “Here, it is direct — the jewellery is closer than ever to the body itself. The pieces fit closely around the finger, around the neck, around the wrist. I wanted to return to this symbiosis: to be at one with the skin.”

The Hermès Réseau lumière necklace, like the rest of the collection, is designed to glorify the body of the wearer. “Geometry is inherent in all of us, art merely reveals it,” Hardy added. “I love that the body holds so much symmetry; it is a wealth of mechanisms and articulations. The jewellery I create attempts to bring to the surface these inherent facets of the human body, and to exalt them.”

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