The Alchemist: An Exclusive Look At Fawaz Gruosi’s Exquisite High Jewellery Pieces
The iconic jeweller’s new brand is just as dazzling and daring as Bazaar had hoped
It’s early August in Porto Cervo, the small, luxury seaside enclave in northern Sardinia where the world’s elite come to play. Yachts line up like Russian dolls along the marina, each one larger than the last, while sticky heat meets salty air against an inland backdrop of burnished, orange-hued Moorish architecture. It’s a destination dripping in old-world glamour and nostalgia; all deep tans, bright lips, and oversized sunglasses à la Sophia Loren. When a concierge informs Bazaar that The Spy Who Loved Me, the iconic James Bond movie that epitomises the jet-set lifestyle was filmed here back in 1977, it really comes as no surprise.
It’s a fitting home for a seasonal Fawaz Gruosi boutique, the recently launched eponymous brand from one of the most celebrated names in jewellery.
Fawaz’s jewels are bold, uncompromising and iconic. Bright stones combine with an architectural, Art Deco aesthetic to give life to his imagination. He draws inspiration, he says, “from everywhere, but mostly from nature,” and, like the artist that he is, sets about translating his vision into a reality, manifesting sunsets, seascapes, flora and fauna; making the ephemeral permanent, until a new celestial creation is born.
It’s an alchemy that comes from a lifetime in jewellery. With dual Lebanese and Italian heritage, he took his first job in a jewellery store in Florence aged 17, before being approached by renowned jeweller Harry Winston for a position in Saudi Arabia. From there, he was hired by Bvlgari and worked under the then-president and CEO of the brand, Gianni Bulgari, in Italy, before taking the risky decision to launch his own brand, de Grisogono.
At the helm of what became a luxury jewellery powerhouse for nearly three decades, before parting ways with the brand over a year ago, Fawaz built a reputation as a master creator that most jewellers can only ever aspire to. From Hollywood royalty to de facto royalty, A-Listers queued up to adorn themselves in his exquisitely moulded, sensual pieces often featuring an unexpected element – he was the pioneer behind black diamonds, after all. “I’ve never been afraid of doing unusual things,” he tells Bazaar.
“With black diamonds and the icy diamonds, I gave myself the freedom to let go. At the time, every shop in every big city in Europe was creating minimalist designs, small pieces. So I started to do bold and colourful things with unusual materials.” His creative rebellion paid off. At de Grisogono’s peak, he had succeeded in opening 17 boutiques as well as selling to 114 retailers worldwide with industry sources estimating that the company’s annual sales were above $100 million. The launch of his new brand, comes then with a significant weight of expectation.
But he is poised to meet the challenge. Last year, he opened the brand’s new flagship London store, located on Berkeley Square, enlisting Francis Sultana to create the interiors. Drawing inspiration from the Art Deco period of 1920s Paris and New York, the boutique feels like an elegant and lavish private home with patinated bronze, suede, bullion-threaded tweed, rock crystal, and marble as well as deep, rich velvets.
The opening of the Fawaz Gruosi seasonal boutique in Porto Cervo this summer, the next step in the eponymous brand’s strategy, is timed to coincide with Fawaz’s birthday. Located in the heart of Hotel Cervo, a suitably five-star affair that overlooks the iconic Piazzetta, the jewels pop like colourful rays of sunshine. They are very much at home here both stylistically and in terms of their creator’s love of the island, which he has visited for decades. “Porto Cervo is meaningful for me,” he says. “It inspires me, it is where jewellery takes shape in my mind. I like to walk in the streets, take in the people, colours and smells. I revel in the unexpected.”
That element of surprise is very much alive in his new collections. Having been introduced to amber by a Lithuanian friend who collects it on the beaches of the Baltic Sea – reputably the best in the world – Fawaz decided to explore its properties, and captures its sun-drenched essence in an array of spectacular pieces. Amber is skillfully carved into cabochons, a slim bangle punctuated with a single diamond, the creole shapes of drop-hoop earrings, or the centrepiece to a rose gold, brown diamond, and tsavorite ring. By juxtaposing the deep amber tones with playful pink sapphires, onyx cabochons, rose gold, or aquamarine, he invigorates the raw material and imbues it with unexpected scene-stealing drama.
In the Enlaced Collection, inspired by the ancient symbol of the love-knot and the eternal bonds between friends and family, Fawaz once again defies expectation by giving a jewellery staple, the hoop earring, a new contemporary twist. Two ovals interlock with the first sitting on the front of the ear whilst the second loops around to the back. Modern, strong, and elegant, it’s a powerful reimagining.
Elsewhere, the jewels that are a part of the Colorissima Collection play into Fawaz’s love of colour and its ability to evoke emotion and recall a memory. Resplendent with light, precious stones meet hardstones – blue topaz, rubellite, turquoise, pink opal, amethysts, emeralds and citrine – in a dizzy cacophony of colour.
It’s this ability to make the familiar new by inviting seemingly disparate elements – materials, colours, gemstones – to converse with each other and create a new kind of visual poetry that lies at the heart of Fawaz Gruosi.
Once the boutique has been explored, it’s time to prepare for our host’s birthday dinner. At de Grisogono, he earned a reputation as the undisputed king of Cannes, holding annual parties at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc that became the stuff of legend with each guestlist reading as a who’s-who – supermodels, Hollywood icons, royalty, oligarchs. Here, in Porto Cervo we gather on the beach at the luxury Cala di Volpe. At the ripe age of 69, does he see an end in sight? “I’d rather shoot myself,” he tells Bazaar. “I’m as I was before, if not better.”
Dressed elegantly, in characteristic Italian style, Fawaz is charming and unexpectedly a little shy, flanked by social butterflies glittering in his creations, greeting each guest with a smile and a private word; drawing us in with his quiet, almost hushed tones. He is enormously charismatic and possesses the ability to move very little and yet cover vast swathes of guests who orbit around him like planets to a star. There are influential families and important clients from the Middle East, Russia, and Europe.
“The people here are friends who have become like family,” he says. “I have become very close to them over the years.” Amongst them, several guests are wearing Fawaz Gruosi, including his most colossal creations. It’s reassuring to see women emerging from global lockdowns and embracing bold, statement pieces again. That sense of celebratory buoyancy is sweeter, one imagines, when adorned in Fawaz Gruosi’s iconic jewels.
Gone is the thousand-strong guestlist of Cannes and its unapologetic glitziness, replaced instead by something more discreet, in part due to COVID guidelines, but no less elegant. It is suggestive of a new direction for a new brand. Less excessive and more personal. There is a defiance in returning after such a storied history at de Grisogono and rising like a phoenix from the ashes in such an unexpected manner. But that, of course, is Fawaz Gruosi. Always surprising us in the most unanticipated way.