Jewelry Worthy of Its Grams in Gold



Equally as transparency is becoming a hot subject in vogue, jewellery brand names are getting a web site from the Everlane playbook and adapting it to their companies.

A type of corporations, Mene, a brand new Internet site situated in America, has pared jewelry back to its aspects and aligned price ranges with weight.

The company, named for the ancient Aramaic phrase for income (which was gold at some time), has even trademarked the phrase “expense jewelry” for its reliable 24-karat gold and, shortly, platinum, goods, all reported to generally be responsibly mined in America and Canada.

Its lineup of about 150 pieces contains torques and cuffs, stackable bangles, smooth-faced signet rings, chokers, charms and objects like guitar picks, dreidels plus a D.J.’s headphone jack.

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Rates, which fluctuate — at times numerous instances every day — to match prevailing current market costs, have just lately started off at a lot less than $two hundred for one gold-chain earring, with a little cube at one particular conclude, totaling 3.5 grams of gold. At one point on April twenty five, by way of example, the earring’s gold price was shown on the web as $149.56 as well as the Mene charge, for design and style and manufacturing, was outlined as $29.ninety one.


The most costly piece on the internet site is often a toggle-shut heart and nail website link necklace of over 187 grams of gold ($9,591.eighteen on April 25); its most unconventional is a totally practical Mastercard made of thirty grams of 24-karat gold, readily available by Exclusive buy for $1,five hundred.

At the conclusion of 2017, Mene introduced it had lifted just as much as $21 million in progress capital, and the site debuted formally in January by using a cocktail get together in the course of couture 7 days for the Gagosian Gallery in Paris. It is the brainchild of Roy Sebag, a co-founder of GoldMoney, the gold-centered money services firm which has a 32 p.c equity ownership stake in Mene, and Diana Widmaier Picasso, a granddaughter of Pablo Picasso that's the model’s chief artistic officer and an in depth friend of Mr. Sebag’s.

While Ms. Picasso was born using a name truly worth its body weight in gold, she mentioned she had shied clear of lending her title to commercial tasks, preferring to concentrate on her vocation as an artwork historian. “For a long time I’ve been supplied a number of capsules and collaborations,” she explained throughout an job interview in her mild-loaded condominium around the Remaining Financial institution in Paris, “but I never needed to place my identify on something ephemeral.”


She agreed to operate on Mene since, she said, it promised continuity and she or he could possibly be comfortable with its environmental qualifications because the supply of its supplies may very well be traced. She added that her affinity for jewellery developed by artists made the corporate really feel similar to a organic extension to her history to be a expert in aged masters and sculpture.

Because of this, she recently has become juggling her tasks for Mene with organizing an exhibition of her grandfather’s sculptures, being held in Oct on the Villa Borghese in Rome.

For Ms. Picasso, Mene offered an identical confrontation concerning the classics and modernity. “It’s Imaginative still democratic,” she said. “Once i think about the costs and effervescence while in the artwork globe, I ponder about the fact of everything. I think that transparency is vital in all things, and for jewelry especially.”





Sunjoo Moon, still left, the artwork director of Mene, and Diana Widmaier Picasso, a founder of the business and Main inventive officer.CreditVenturelli/Getty s for DWP
The notion that unalloyed gold is considered “far too gentle” for jewelry is an item of selling spin, as well, she extra, noting that pure metallic is more prone to retain price over time.

Ms. Picasso enlisted her Good friend Sunjoo Moon, an alumna of vogue residences which includes Kenzo and Missoni, as Mene’s artwork director. And an acquaintance, the product Anja Rubik, signed on initially like a muse and stayed to supervise the model’s promotion campaigns.

The most recent campaign, Mene’s third, relies on generational ties and stars Isabella Rossellini along with her daughter, Elettra Wiedemann, photographed by Paola Kudacki. The Dutch images duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin are developing a Mene capsule collection to get launched this slide, the main in what Ms. Picasso said could be a series of collaborations.

Soon after a few months, Mene experienced outpaced the business plan, with $600,000 in sales in March by yourself. Several pieces, like a set of three stacking rings ($1,731), had been offered out. The business claimed it absolutely was expanding production to meet the demand.

According to the reaction, the brand is taking its wares offline, as well, with retailer openings planned by the tip in the yr in Geneva and from the St. Germain community of Paris.

The French firm Le Gramme also concentrates on absolute minimalism, even naming its merchandise by their metric body weight.

A allure bracelet offered about the Mene Internet site.




A allure bracelet obtainable within the Mene Site.
It was founded in 2012 by Adrien Messié, as ΔαχτυλιΔια Σειρε Ολοβερα soon as a licensing director for the designer Andrée Putman, and Erwan Le Louër, who designed jewellery for The style property Martin Margiela. Le Gramme’s very first collection featured only 5 spare, ribbonlike cuff bracelets created for Adult men, in brushed or polished gold or silver; in addition to a vital ring and also a ruler, in silver.

“Our first imagined was, what’s tougher than finding a reward for a man?” Mr. Messié stated. “It’s always complicated.”

And so the founders chose to maintain things very simple. “Each piece is undoubtedly an equation among a pure form, a cloth, texture and end,” Mr. Messié mentioned. To avoid The style connotation of jewelry, they known as their parts objets portés, or objects which have been worn or carried.

Nevertheless, notion stores together with Gago, in Aix-en-Provence, France; Dover Road Marketplace Δαχτυλιδια Σειρε Φθηνα Ginza in Tokyo; and Barneys in Big apple picked up the gathering. On Instagram, the hashtag #mylegramme exhibits people today like The style designer Alexis Mabille, the Paris Opéra Ballet star Marie-Agnès Gillot and the interior designer Joseph Dirand wearing the manufacturer’s types.

The popularity of ΔαχτυλιΔια Σειρε Ολοβερα bracelets as determination presents soon prompted the designers to include rings.

This month, the ring family is increasing having a stackable selection of 15 wedding bands, the thinnest of which — a slender slice of basic white, yellow or red gold — weighs only one gram (rates begin at 330 euros, or about $four hundred.).

Other pieces in The brand new collection involve one particular-gram designs which have been Δαχτυλιδια Σειρε Φθηνα partly or entirely pavéd with tiny diamonds. Thicker kinds might be divided with only one baguette diamond, set using a complete row of baguettes, or textured with little guilloché pyramids. A fresh family of cable bracelets in silver or gold weighing five to eleven grams (€190 to €one,970, or about $230 to $2,360) rounds out the year’s offering, all of which can be obtained online and are coming to pick Barneys suppliers in July.

“We’re heading from remaining a man’s model to almost — Practically — unisex,” Mr. Δαχτυλιδια Σειρε Φθηνα Messié said.






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