The artistic jewelry of Thierry Vendome

An artistic sense of jewelry from father to son

Thierry Vendome began studying the trade at the age of 16, as an apprentice in his father Jean Vendome's workshop, located on rue Saint-Honoré, far from the academicism of jewelry or Fine Arts schools. Immersed in his father's work, Thierry benefited from the group of artists around him. Indeed, Jean Vendome is one of the precursors of contemporary jewelry: he first introduced the aesthetic principles of abstraction into the art of jewelry in the 1960s. Decorated as an officer of the Order of Merit and then a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, he accumulated the greatest awards and exhibited his works all over the world. 

Thierry Vendome would stay by his father's side for 23 years, to support him and develop his own collections later. Since the 1990s, Thierry Vendome has had this desire to put his signature in a new movement of contemporary jewelry. Without repeating his father's work, he has been able to draw inspiration from it and extend it, in creations of his own, thus developing a powerful sculptural language in the field of jewelry.

New materials for jewelry branded Thierry Vendome

Like precious stones, Thierry Vendome values stones less commonly used in jewelry, such as fine stones: tourmalines, citrines, quartz, topazes…but also ornamental stones: turquoise, jade, obsidian, opal… 

He also experiments with the use of entirely new contemporary materials in jewelry, such as rusty metal plates, barbed wire, rope, nails, driftwood, glass, coins, etc. from which he creates pieces with an elaborate aesthetic, but also comfortable and pleasant to wear. 

He combines these unusual materials in jewelry with precious materials such as gold, platinum and precious stones (diamond, sapphire, ruby, emerald), with the aim of breaking away from the academicism and classicism of jewelry. He mixes both the profane and the sacred, the ancient and the modern, the beautiful and the ugly, the altered and the precious... Thierry Vendome crosses materials, eras and genres, which he likes to merge in the image of a complex and changing world.

Inspirations from elsewhere

To design his jewelry, Thierry Vendome finds inspiration on different themes such as his travels which constitute one of his sources of inspiration. He thus celebrates the world of China, from Africa, from the United States , but his main land of inspiration is Armenia, his family roots, and which he particularly likes for its welcome and its Faith. He will launch a whole collection "Aygedsor" in homage to his vines.

Many of its collections draw their strength from this organic, asymmetrical, imperfect, mineral, vegetal or animal, which moves him and whose full power he never ceases to want to capture. Each of his creations is a true artist's jewel, which he designs, models, sculpts...

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