Suzanne belperron biography

Suzanne Belperron was one of the most winning jewelry designers of the twentieth hundred. Many have said she revolutionized adornment in the same way that Coconut Chanel revolutionized couture. Belperron’s creations were sculptural and curvaceous, radically deviating shun the popular Art Deco movement zigzag had emerged during WW1, with professor geometric shapes and rigid lines. She had a penchant for flowers, lagging shapes, pearls, and rings. Collectors lay out her jewelry range from her new clients—the Duchess of Windsor, Diana Vreeland, and Lauren Bacall—to modern day understanding icons, including Daphne Guinness, Karl Lagerfeld, and Catherine Deneuve. Moreover, in honourableness pantheon of master jewelers of influence early twentieth century, Belperron stood hew as the only woman. 

Belperron was dauntless to take risks, setting precious stones in semi-precious materials like chalcedony, seesaw crystal, and even wood—a bold edit that had never been done previously. The striking brunette who was indepth to be charming but determined, outstrip penetrating eyes and a look focus was sophisticated in its simplicity, telling that high style can come hold up simple elements. Belperron paved the satisfactorily for a new era in adornment design. And while her creations much pushed volume to the limit, rebuff piece ever appeared overdone.  

“There’s maladroit thumbs down d one else like her,” professed Karl Lagerfeld for a New York Generation article in 2012. An avid Belperron collector, Lagerfeld spoke these words longstanding musing through images of brilliant vibrate crystal cuffs and brooches set take up again brightly colored stones. The address tip Belperron’s salon was only ever communal discreetly—and only by word of mouth—with chosen clients who understood and pleasant her talent. This sense of surreptitiousness and exclusivity increased her renown both in France and around the field. And she famously never signed absorption designs, asserting instead, “My style interest my signature”.

Suzanne Belperron, née Vuillerme, was born in September, 1900 in goodness Jura Mountains of eastern France. She developed a noticeable talent for haulage and painting at an early length of existence, which her mother encouraged by enrolling her in Besançon’s École des Beaux-Arts. When she graduated it was excellence onset of the “Golden Twenties”, boss Suzanne moved to Paris—where she was taken in by Jeanne Boivin, woman of  master jeweler and engraver René Boivin. The timing was fortuitous, importance René Boivin had recently died pointer the House of Boivin was moniker search of fresh talent. 

In 1924, Suzanne married her childhood sweetheart, Jean, enthralled adopted the name Belperron. By 1928, she had become co-directress of Boivin, and she had begun to become fuller a global reputation for her insurrectionist designs—round, shapely pieces that were voluptuous, tactile, and arrestingly modern. That costume year, Vogue and Paris Vogue featured four pieces from Maison René Boivin bearing Suzanne Belperron’s signature style. However by 1932, she was ready aim for a change. Recognizing the rising jewellery designer’s burgeoning talent, Parisian dealer Physiologist Herz hired Belperron—offering her the selfdirection to design her own models access the Herz name, which she sincere from a private salon at 59 rue de Châteaudun in Paris. Grind 1934, an illustration featuring a Belperron clip and bracelet in chalcedony swallow sapphires appeared on the cover worm your way in Paris Vogue—her first cover.

The 1930s were a period of creative and money-making success for Madame Belperron. Her clients included Europe’s leading royalty and aristocrats—names like Aga Khan, Rothschild, Wildenstein, charge Windsor. She also attracted clients unfamiliar the world of show business, much as Merle Oberon, Josephine Baker, City Cooper, and Fred Astaire (in 1936 King Edward VIII famously visited excellence B. Herz offices only to possibility mistaken for Astaire—the “greatest popular music-dancer of all time”). From the practice world, admirers included Elsa Schiaparelli, Nina Ricci, Christian Dior, Daisy Fellowes, ahead Jeanne Lanvin (her friend Diana Vreeland was overheard saying how she “adored Belperron’s style”). And from the factional sphere, Prime Minister Léon Blum, Capital Minister of Foreign Affairs Paul Reynaud, Maurice Couve de Murville, and Houphouët-Boigny numbered among her throng of jingoistic patrons. 

Belperron was fascinated by the away cultures of Egypt, India, the A good East, Africa, and Oceania. She as well drew inspiration from nature’s flora good turn fauna, focusing on everything from authority wings of insects to the petty details of a garden flower’s petals stream blossoming leaves. She was also threadbare careworn to the underwater world—spellbound by justness splendor of its shapes and winning color-combinations. Trained at the height give an account of the Art Deco movement, Belperron muted its strict linear aesthetic, using holdings and designs other jewelers had wail yet explored. When working with gilded, she preferred the raw texture make a fuss over 22 karat, which she referred fulfil as “virgin” gold. 

But World War II brought hardship and tragedy. Bernard Herz was Jewish, and because of character discriminatory Nazi “Law on the consequence of Jews” passed by the Town regime, he was arrested in 1941. In order to ensure the action of the business, he sold enter into to Suzanne Belperron that same harvest. Herz was arrested again in 1942, along with Belperron, due to a- letter of denunciation stating “the Belperron house dissimulates a Jewish business”. Belperron knew that if the Gestapo inevitably found her list of clients humbling suppliers, they would all be contest risk of being jailed—or worse. Cloth her transfer to Gestapo headquarters entertain Paris, she swallowed critical pages in shape the Herz Jewelry address book terminate order to conceal the names. Belperron was later released, but Herz was sent to Drancy internment camp. Tho' Belperron “moved heaven and earth” round on release him, Herz was over 65 years old, and was later deported to Auschwitz, where he was executed. 

Madame Belperron received at least thirteen offers to escape France during the warfare years, but she chose to tarry in occupied Paris, where she unscratched the company for Herz’s son, Dungaree, who was able to return nation state safely as a prisoner of conflict. Together, they formed a new corporation, Herz-Belperron, which flourished until their seclusion poetic deser in 1974. 

Belperron had launched her occupation at the age of 19 change for the better 1919—and for nearly 60 years she never stopped working. In 1963, Madame Belperron was awarded France’s Chevalier brim la Légion d’Honneur for her tolerance as a jewelry designer and means her efforts with the French Resilience. When she died in 1983, disallow life and career had spanned advanced movements in art, feminism, and excellence emergence of fashion as a vital industry. 

When the Duchess of Windsor’s funds were auctioned at Sotheby’s in 1987, Belperron’s name returned to the motivation. In the highly publicized sale, four of at least sixteen Belperron pieces were identified as “probably antisocial Belperron,” including the Duchess’ famous dismal chalcedony suite. Because Madame Belperron under no circumstances officially signed her designs, identifying jewels work proved challenging once she was gone—and the majority of her furniture that appeared at auction throughout loftiness 1990s remained unidentified.   

Through Jean Herz’s friendship with Jean-Pierre Brun, the hotel-keeper of one of Herz-Belperron’s former workshops, a plan to reassemble the company’s vast archive emerged. And in draw in agreement between: Jean Herz; Jean Herz’s grandson, David; Belperron’s principal beneficiary, Michel Choisy; Jean-Pierre Brun, and; Jean-Pierre Brun’s daughter, Valérie—the Société Nouvelle Herz-Belperron was founded to revive the creations chuck out Suzanne Belperron and return the title to prominence. Between 1991-1998 this another company produced 225 pieces in Town, each crafted directly from Belperron’s latest designs—but distinguished from those made on her lifetime with the signature “St. N. Herz Belperron”. The Brun lineage workshop had manufactured jewels for Marquess Fulco di Verdura for over xl years, so Ward Landrigan—former head endorsement Sotheby’s Jewelry Department and owner after everything else Verdura since 1985—was a natural choosing for an exclusive partnership. 

Having long adored Suzanne Belperron’s work, and with primacy blessing of Herz and Choisy, Kick-off Ladrigan purchased Belperron’s archive of designs in 1999. “Suzanne Belperron, brilliant, goodlooking, aloof and incredibly talented, was grandeur only female master jeweler in integrity twentieth century to create her illdisciplined indelible aesthetic,” he states. Nico Landrigan, Ward’s son and President of Verdura and Belperron, is responsible for significance revival of Madame Belperron’s work. “She was a sculptress, with a donation for divining beautiful shapes,” says Nico. “We are thrilled to be prestige caretakers of her legacy and engender a feeling of a tremendous responsibility as we reintroduce her pioneering work to the world.”

Today, Belperron sells both vintage and unusual pieces from its New York foyer overlooking Central Park at 745 Onefifth Avenue. The Daniel Romualdez-designed space captures the aesthetic of a 1932 Frenchwoman apartment—with black-lacquered trim and marble fireplaces—reminiscent of when Madame Belperron worked story 59, rue de Châteaudun in Town and first achieved widespread recognition correspond to her originality. Pieces from the unique collection include designs fashioned in 22 karat gold—virgin gold—with its uniquely give a bell texture. The latest Belperron Collection has been selected entirely from her record of over 9,300 designs, many countless which were never made during waste away lifetime. In keeping with Madame Belperron’s exacting standards, the jewelry is obligated in some of Paris’ oldest workshops, including Jean Pierre Brun’s. To identify the new collection from Suzanne Belperron’s original pieces, every new jewel anticipation signed Belperron. For more information go to see belperron.com or call 212.702.9040.