Chinese couture and haute joaillerie get spun into one strong and seamless (diamond) thread in Chow Tai Fook’s latest high jewellery collection.

The refined elegance of flowing silks, elaborate embroidery, and intricate fastenings has been indisputable over centuries. Naturally, this led to many creative interpretations of Chinese-style ties, contours and threads over time by fashion and jewellery houses, to varying levels of accuracy and success. Now, breathe easy as Chinese couture gets a most thoroughly modern yet convincing expression in the form of <a href="https://www.lofficielsingapore.com/jewellery/bountiful-blessings-from-chow-tai-fook-gold-jewellery-latest-ctf-rouge-collection-hong-kong">Chow Tai Fook</a>’s second high jewellery collection by Nicholas Lieou. The Creative Director of High Jewellery at Chow Tai Fook maintains the intent and <a href="https://www.lofficielsingapore.com/jewellery/sonia-cheng-at-the-helm-of-chow-tai-fook-hong-kong-gold-jewellery-interview">craftsmanship</a> in the details he examines (the defining materials, iconic motifs, and structural elements), while also seeing them with a contemporary, east-meets-west view — think mixing jadeite, emeralds and diamonds on a creation meant to evoke the natural beauty, colour and shape of a traditional jade pendant. His new collection is presented across five sub-themes, which explore the fine detailing and craft that goes into Chinese attire: Jade Ombre, Cord, Ribbon, Button Knot and Yun.

Nicholas Lieou, Creative Director of High Jewellery at Chow Tai Fook, talks L’OFFICIEL SINGAPORE through the five themes of the Chinese Couture High Jewellery Collection

On what the Chinese Couture High Jewellery Collection was inspired by:
“This [collection] actually started when we went to an exhibition in Beijing, which showed over 100 historic dragon robes. This information was quite overwhelming for me and the team. How would we distill thousands of years of history in a collection of high jewellery? If we focused on one particular aspect or one particular dynasty, it would feel more important than the others. So we really wanted to look at the craft of Chinese couture, rather than the symbolism, which is very rich in Chinese history. We have the cloud motif, for example, which is very apparent in a lot of Chinese iconography. We have this in our creations called Yun. And in this exhibition, in one corner of this very big exhibition, they showed how they made silks and the pigments used. This was all done with natural dyes and by hand. Back in the day, this was a very labour intensive process. That’s why we focused on the craft of Chinese couture.”

On the Jade Ombre creations:
“Jade is a very cultural, historic material. We wear this on top of our Chinese clothing. To pay homage to this, we have recreated the jade material with smaller jadeite caps, emeralds, rose-cut diamonds and pavé diamonds. Jade is formed over millions of years and has this beautiful tone of colour — different shades of green mixed with white. We’ve recreated this using jadeite material. We stuck to traditional jade profiles that you can recognise. For example, the jade pendant that you normally see.”

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“We chose to depict jade using jade, because it’s such a culturally significant material. What we wanted to communicate is the natural qualities of jade, because jade took millions of years to develop this mix of colour. I wanted to communicate the naturalistic quality of Jade. That’s why we mixed jadeite with emeralds — emeralds are considered to be a more Western gemstone, so this mix of gemstones almost creates a new culture, and a new language for us.”

On the Ribbon series:
“Silk ribbons were social signifiers — what colour, the embroidery on the ribbon. We recreated this in 22K gold. The wonderful thing about these pieces is that there are two layers of gold. So underneath, you have a western-style ribbon, a grosgrain ribbon, that is faceted. And on top, we have a Chinese-style filigree ribbon. These pieces have quite a bit of structure between the two layers. Because 22K gold is quite soft, if you look at the side, you can see this almost architectural structure in the two layers.”

On the Cord pieces:
“Silk was discovered by China. We have samples in museums from over 5,600 years ago — our ancestors knew how to do silk weaving, silk fabrics. We wanted to pay homage to this by creating a diamond thread. The difference between silk thread and cotton thread: the latter is made up of many fibres intertwined together, whereas silk thread is made from one long piece that comes from the silk worm. So we have a fully round diamond cord. The way we set the diamonds is quite special. Each diamond has a cut-down setting, to give a slightly rounded profile. We have a necklace that features a Melo pearl, which is a gift from nature. They come from a sea snail — you can probably find one Melo pearl from 100,000 of these sea snails.”
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“We had to do a lot of R&amp;D and testing, to make sure that when we did this diamond thread, we couldn't see where it starts and ends. We hid all the mechanisms and the connections, and even the clasp.”

On the Button Knot creations:
“Button knots came into fashion around the Tang dynasty. Before that, the fashions used more ties and ribbons for clothing. There is quite a lot of engineering that goes into the buttons. If the fabric buttons are too close together, the fabric will be too tight and the buttons will be pulling on the fabric. If they are too loose, the buttons would undo themselves. We created these buttons that frame the neck, with emeralds and emerald beads — very flexible, so each of the individual buttons flex. As the wearer moves, the buttons move with them. We have a bangle with jadeite and emeralds, with the button knots as iconography, which makes a bold statement. We combined jadeite and emeralds together because the material composition is very similar. Both get their green colour from chromium.”

On the Yun series:
“Yun comes from the cloud pattern that is very prevalent — on fabrics, on the dragon robes, on packaging, books and scrolls as well. They are so ingrained in our culture that I felt it would be too much to use the whole pattern. So we used a hint, the corner, to suggest the cloud. So we have jadeite and diamonds floating in the centre [of the jewellery pieces]. This is a two part ring, so you can wear the two bands together and stack them, or wear them separately. On the evening purse, we have the full cloud pattern, and also the ice-crack pattern that you find on windows, which represents the transition from winter to spring. This is completely functional.”

Read the full interview with Nicholas Lieou, Creative Director of High Jewellery at Chow Tai Fook, in the August issue of L'OFFICIEL SINGAPORE.&nbsp;

Craftsmanship and Modernity in Chow Tai Fook's Chinese Couture High Jewellery Collection

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