Tiffany & Co’s newest creations for its Blue Book 2023: Out of the Blue collection dive deep into the ocean for wondrous designs
The tribute to the late designer, Jean Schlumberger, continues with close to 60 new high jewellery pieces.
With 58 new creations joining the 71 launched earlier this year, the Blue Book 2023: Out of the Blue is an extensive collection that speaks of the late designer Jean Schlumberger’s oeuvre. (Photo: Tiffany & Co.)
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It’s impossible to speak of Jean Schlumberger’s creations without using the word fantastical. Superbly rich with vibrant colours and tactile details, the designs showcase the late designer’s singular view of the world we live in, pulling inspiration from his extensive travels and marrying his love of nature with his flair for the imaginative. In his two-decade-long tenure as Tiffany & Co’s vice president (he retired in the late 1970s), the jewellery designer brought to life many designs that remain brand signatures to this day — from the highly coveted Bird on a Rock brooch, to the paillonne enamel bangles so beloved by Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
Nothing was safe from his prolific imagination. The abstract found its soulmate in realism on delicate trailing vines that balanced out succulent fruits as creatures of the air cavorted with those found underwater. Yet, it could be argued that, despite his far-reaching inspirations, it was in the latter category that Schlumberger’s artistic depth found its fullest expression.
For 2023, Tiffany & Co turned its eye to the subject with a dedication that sees the House giving the aquatic inspiration a breadth and depth like never before. With 58 new creations joining the 71 launched earlier this year, the Blue Book 2023: Out of the Blue is an extensive collection that speaks of the profundity of Schlumberger’s oeuvre.
The first Blue Book collection to be designed by chief artistic officer of jewellery and high jewellery Nathalie Verdeille (she joined the House in September 2021), the collection centres around the question of how Schlumberger would approach the subject today. The answer is perhaps best embodied by the new Sea Anemone theme: The 18th-century en tremblant technique (where elements of the design are mounted on wire-coil springs so that they tremble with the slightest movement) is used alongside inverse gem settings (a gem’s table facet faces down and the culet faces up) to lend movement and texture to the invertebrates. The Sea Anemone creations also spotlight a stone that Schlumberger had no chance to delight in: Blue cuprian elbaite tourmalines, which were only discovered in 1989, two years after the designer’s demise.
