Forces of Freedom: Exploring Louis Vuitton’s Mythical Vision For High Jewellery
With her new Spirit high jewellery collection, artistic director Francesca Amfitheatrof takes us on a fantastical gemstone journey
When Francesca Amfitheatrof became the artistic director of jewellery and watches at Louis Vuitton in 2018, the luxury house finally found the right person to tell its unique high jewellery story. A woman of strong convictions, an easy laugh, a sense of adventure and an exceptional eye for creating iconic jewellery, Francesca is, to a certain extent, the female manifestation of the house’s new Spirit high jewellery collection.
“To me freedom is everything,” says Francesca as we have a relaxing chat in Marrakech, the city she has chosen to unveil the first 80 pieces of the 125-piece Spirit collection to the public for the first time. “You know, I’m a very free spirit. I’m also somebody who likes to move around. So freedom, the freedom to do what you want, see what you want, to be who you want to be… is crucial to my being and my happiness.”
“The freedom to do what you want, see what you want, to be who you want to be… is crucial to my being and my happiness,”
Francesca Amfitheatrof
The Spirit collection, which marks the fourth high jewellery offering designed by Francesca for the house, has five central themes under which the different pieces in this collection reside, Radiance, Liberty, Destiny, Fantasy and Grace. It is also the house’s largest offering of high jewellery since it started in this creative arena back in 2008. But what is perhaps most notable about the collection is how it has smoothly moved more discernible references of the Louis Vuitton logo and name into the background.
Instead, they are given more subtle acknowledgements via the patented diamond cuts the house created to mimic their iconic monogram flowers, both rounded cut and pointed cut shapes, that appear on, for example, the collection’s Liberty necklace. A very modern offering that also features sophisticated nods to Louis Vuitton trunk elements and evokes the house’s Damier pattern. It also has a hidden message sculpted into the underside of the necklace that reads “Liberty is the freedom to explore, to discover the world, to express innate power”.
The Fantasy necklace, which has an undulating chevron pattern of white and yellow gold set with diamonds, brings to mind the idea of the scales of a mystical creature coiling around the collarbone and also delicately implies the V for Vuitton via its elongated design. While the rounded, wing-like shape of the Grace necklace in the collection has an understated V pattern embedded in it via baguette-cut diamonds. Not to mention the V-shaped dip that dives down towards the decolletage where an exceptional 65.26-carat oval-cut tsavorite resides, shows another restrained way Francesca pays homage to the Louis Vuttion name.
“You know, we’re a very logo-strong brand,” says Francesca. “But it was very important to create a design vocabulary that you can recognise. When somebody walks in [a room], and you’re like, ‘Okay, that’s Vuitton’, for me that’s my challenge,” says the artistic director who is still in the process of building the gemstone language for the house’s high jewellery. Things like mixing different coloured golds has become a new part of that language, as have the use of motifs like the chevron, the arrow or the triangle. “So it’s creating these elements that we can use continuously and, going forward, [they] will become part of our signature. The whole point is we have to mature in a way where we are creating a design vocabulary that people recognise,” she elaborates. Thankfully creating new visual vocabularies is something Francesca is exceedingly good at.
“The whole point is we have to mature in a way where we are creating a design vocabulary that people recognise,”
Francesca Amfitheatrof
Born in Tokyo, Japan, and a graduate of Central Saint Martins, she famously was the first woman to head jewellery design at Tiffany, and during her tenure, she came up with the now instantly recognisable Tiffany T and Tiffany HardWear jewellery collections. Before that, she had already proved herself to be a master adornment storyteller, having worked with brands like Fendi, Chanel and Marni on jewellery and accessories collections, not to mention her stint working at Garrard.
For her Spirit high jewellery collection, a common thread for Francesca seems to be this idea of mythical creatures. Case in point, the impressive Radiance necklace that looks as if it has stepped right out of the series Game of Thrones. An armour of glinting gold scales that surround and protect the neck, and at its centre a fiery 10.99-carat orange spessartite garnet, framed by a V motif set in diamond baguettes. “I wanted to do animals from the minute I arrived at Vuitton” confirms Francesca. “But I didn’t want to do figurative animals because we’re not that kind of house. I just wanted to do animals in a different way.”
This mythological approach, where dragons and phoenixes are creative starting points, could be a wellspring of inspiration for Francesca for future collections. It certainly feels as if it’s an area that has yet to be fully explored by her peers in other luxury high jewellery houses, in the way that flowers and fauna or celestial bodies have been. And that fantastical approach surely looked right at home when models wearing the Spirit pieces graced the halls of Marrakech’s Dar el Bacha Museum, which was once the home of Pasha Thami El Glaoui for the gala dinner debut. They felt destined to be there.
And when it comes to destiny and what’s next for Francesca at Louis Vuitton, she clearly has a vision for the famed luxury house. “Some people believe your destiny is written, I believe you make your own destiny in life,” she says with the strength of someone who is ready to design her future, one unforgettable piece of jewellery at a time.
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s November 2022 issue