My visit to the Emirates Palace Abu Dhabi in February 2011 coincided with a high and fine jewelry exhibition taking place, as part of the ‘Signature’ exclusive event. For the first time, I came across such spectacular examples of creativity woven into high jewelry designs. Given my love for colours and jewelry making, I decided to write about a few of the jewelry designers.
First in this series of articles is Garaude Paris.
Garaude Paris definitely kept me spellbound with precious stones rampant with gorgeous colours and techniques. Â Gleaning inspiration from this travels, founder Francois Garaude, along with daughter Jeanne, has definitely worked the artistic muscle to create alluring collections featuring aspects of India as well as Japan.
I was particularly drawn to the Hokusai collection made of brooches and earrings in coloured titanium. Garaude shared with me that the collection was conceived in homage to the Great Wave off Kanawaga. The more I gazed at the earrings, the more I felt I was riding the diamond studded waves of life’s journey. In light of the recent tragic events in Japan, Garaude has decided to donate profits from the Hokusai collection to the victims of tsunami.
Garuade shared with me electroplating techniques that give rise to the colours of the earrings. In simple terms, electroplating is a laboratory based technique where a metal is finely plated with another metal by using an electric current. The base metal is now coated with the metal evenly and smoothly.
The collection India is another stone-studded collection that reminds me of my own rich Indian roots and heritage. The vibrant red, pink and purple colours is all imaginable hues (burgundy, fuchsia, lavender and more) are reminiscent of Jaipur and Agra.  For a bit of history, Jaipur is called the pink city as many of its avenues are painted pink by an emperor in historic times. When I think of Agra, I think of the colour red, because the Red Fort in Agra is made of red sandstone that is easily available there.
Garaude’s journey into jewelry design is fascinating to someone who love design and travel. In 1980, after six years of studying architecture, Garaude became interested in rough emeralds and learnt to cut stones and became trading in stones as he travelled. He was known to travel across South America, Asia and Africa for natural stones. He studied jewellery manufacture and became interested in titanium for new design perspectives.
Garaude launched his Paris jewellery brand with his daughter Jeanne in 2010. Their collections Renaissance (which reinterprets the shapes and combinations of materials found in ancient jewellery) and Hokusai (inspired by the Japanese print master as mentioned earlier) were exhibited in Baselworld, Couture Las Vegas and Hong Kong, then Paris.
Visit Garaude Paris here.
Next week, we take a look at Aaron Basha’s charmed collection. Stay tuned!
And here questions of type such if honestly strike me not much as I wrote everything higher. It is visible you simply you don’t want to read all this. As my parrot does.
Have you ever thought about including a little bit more than just your articles? I mean, what you say is important and everything. However just imagine if you added some great images or videos to give your posts more, “pop”! Your content is excellent but with pics and clips, this site could undeniably be one of the greatest in its field. Very good blog!
Dear Claude, thank you for your encouraging words. I appreciate it. Till now, all the work on the site has been done by just one person – me. I have done some videos in the past (see here) , and in fact am focussing on doing more videos of capturing ‘hidden treasures’ where ever I travel to.
You will also be pleased to know that I am working towards making the site a bit more interactive (beyond videos, posts and photos) to draw the community in – this, I have to admit, is a long drawn process but I will get there in the end.
Thanks again for your lovely comment. It’s good to get feedback from what people are ‘thirsting’ for, through this website. All the best.
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Dear Estela. Thank you for your comment. Glad you love the work that we put at this arts, culture and travel website.
With regards to your questions about recommendations for aspiring writers, starting your own blog, whether you should use a free platform or pay for it – the answer lies inside of you. Before you start to work on any aspect of the above, you need to sit down and think carefully, why you want to have a blog, what is the end purpose of the blog (hobby, free information resource, business), where do you see your blog in a years time, in 3 years time, in 5 years time. True there is a lot of information out there, which if you know exactly why you want to set up the blog, will help to filter what information you actually need to use to your advantage.
That will determine whether you want to use a free or paid option (whether you see this as a business investment or just something to complement your writing portfolio), whether it is best to get an expert to do all the work for you so that you can focus and remain on top of the business. So if you are a successful business owner looking to create a blog for business purposes, our strategic partners are sure to help you get started and moving ahead. Let me know how you get on!
[…] exquisite jewelry exhibition at the Emirates Palace Hotel, Abu Dhabi in March 2011. You can read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the series […]