Page 18 - VE Magazine - Issue 26

fashion
Space craft
Since the 1920s, the US based company Trifari has produced a huge range of costume jewellery. Founded by Gustavo Trifari, an Italian immigrant and the son of
a Napoli goldsmith – its success is mostly attributed to the French designer Alfred Philippe, who designed for them from 1930 to 1968. He developed invisible stone settings (originally for
Van Cleef and Arpels) and continued this style with Trifari which set it way above any other costume jewellery producers of the time in terms of technique.
In the 1960s they produced a small, but stunning range
of space age jewellery which is highly collectable today. Using plated metals and Lucite, brushed metal finishes and bright coloured glass cabochons, these pieces certainly captured the spirit of the time. The long metal disc necklace and collar
with Lucite ball, seen here, certainly wouldn’t have looked out of place on Barbarella! The Sputnik inspired
charm bracelet was a more affordable alternative to the Cartier versions.
Star Wars star They say, always leave the best
‘til last! We first featured Finnish designer, Björn Weckström back in issue 3 of VE, and we just couldn’t leave him out of this space age group for one obvious reason: George Lucas chose his Planetary Valleys necklace (shown above) to be worn by Princess Leia at the end of the Star Wars movie, god dam it!
It all started after a customer asked him to work with some
gold nuggets from Lapland, the appearance of the raw gold in its natural state – as well as the natural beauty of the landscape in which
it was found – became a lifelong inspiration, leading eventually
to the founding of the Lapponia Jewellery company of which he is co-owner. He won numerous design awards including, in 1968, the prestigious Lunning Prize, set up by the owner of the New York agency for Georg Jensen.
On his return to Finland in
1969, he sat down and designed his famous ‘Space Silver’ series
for Lapponia. The first piece to be designed was this Ikaros (Icarus) ring (shown right) and by the time he had finished he had 50 different designs, including Dance in the Galaxy ring and Petrified Lake ring, also seen here.
The Planetary Valleys necklace that Princess Leia wore is also know as Galactic Peaks - the difference being the latter is highly polished silver, and is
still being produced by Lapponia today. Bjorn combined silver with other materials in innovative ways for his ‘Space Silver’ series
18 / February-March 2016 / ve
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