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Featured in Madame Figaro

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November 17, 2021

Featured in Madame Figaro

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November 20, 2021

Featured in Madame Figaro

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November 14, 2020

Featured in Madame Figaro

February 28, 2020

Studio Marant Interview

December 19, 2018

Featured in Madame Figaro

December 10, 2013

Featured in Stiletto

January 1, 2014

Violette Stehli Jewelry has been awarded the Fabriqué à Paris label for the second year in a row

As part of the 10 finalists in the accessories competition Violette Stehli introduced the Guardians collection, a new series of seven jewels that continue to explore our connection as humans to the natural world.  The Pieces of the Guardians collection simultaneously attempt to preserve fragments of acutely personal moments in time, while also looking outward in a broader sense, to conserve elements of nature in a world that is in increasingly dire straits.  The collection was presented to a jury presided over by Christian Louboutin along with the Hortus Insectorum gloves, designed in collaboration with Hermès.

Because each piece of Violette Stehli Jewelry is made entirely by hand in Paris using only metals, stones, and ressources acquired locally in Paris, the city of Paris has renewed the brands Fabriqué à Paris label, which provides an added guarantee to the principles that are such a core part of the ethos of the brand. This year all of the pieces of the Tooth & Claw collection have been approved as part of the label.

Hortus Insectorum, a pair of gloves designed in collaboration with Hermès for the accessories competition of the 36th international Hyères Festival

Hermès Violette Stehli Hyères Gloves

In the context of the 36th International Hyères Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories competition the finalists in the accessories category were asked to design a pair of gloves to be crafted by Hermès. The Hortus Insectorum gloves are a result of this collaboration.

In the Hermès universe nature is very present, but it is a version of nature which is often made tame by humans, where natural landscapes leave way to carefully manicured greens and domesticated animals. 

In my practice the natural world is wilder, more enigmatic and sometimes even violent. Animals live their lives in dark corners that that we seldom have access to, they act in mysterious ways beyond the limits of our control. They appear in my work as emissaries or totemic figures that enable us to channel their strengths and capacities to give our experience of the world more depth.

It seems to me that the point of intersection between our worlds lies in the garden: a place that is designed by humans, but where, just below the surface insects, larvae, microorganisms and plants communicate amongst themselves through a complex network of roots and mycelium.

The Hortus Insectorum gloves are an invitation to bring Hermès into a wilder version of nature while retaining key elements of the Hermès lexicon.

As a child I have vivid memories of going into our garden and lifting flower pots and old logs under which I would always discover insects larvae and salamanders who had chosen these spots to hide. With the Hortus Insectorum gloves I wanted to take the wearer on a similar journey back into childhood where playing in the dirt is a common occurrence. Something we seldom do as adults. The black leather of the gloves symbolises the fertile soil of gardens and forest floors, and the colourful insects represent those we might find while looking in the nooks and crannies of a garden.

The brightly coloured insects are a callback to the classic colours used in the Hermès collections but also serve the purpose of enabling Hermès to reuse scraps of leather from other items in their ateliers.

By their concept, the gloves are playful and lighthearted, something that is, to me, a core part of the Hermès philosophy. They encourage the person wearing them to engage with the world in a mischievous and poetic way, but they also subtly subvert the practical purpose of gloves in general which is to protect us from the elements, such as dirt and wetness. Here they become a means for the wearer to be more directly in contact with nature. They also remind the wearer that even in an urban context, in which these gloves are typically designed to be worn, nature is never far from us.

My hope is that with the Hortus insectorum gloves we can reconnect with nature through the eyes of a child, while integrating a sense of playfulness and joy into our daily lives.

October 1, 2021

36th Hyères International Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories Festival at the Villa Noailles

36th festival hyeres poster

violette stehli jewlery necklace earrings

As part of the 10 finalists in the accessories competition Violette Stehli introduced the Guardians collection, a new series of seven jewels that continue to explore our connection as humans to the natural world.
The Pieces of the Guardians collection simultaneously attempt to preserve fragments of acutely personal moments in time, while also looking outward in a broader sense, to conserve elements of nature in a world that is in increasingly dire straits.
The collection was presented to a jury presided over by Christian Louboutin along with the Hortus Insectorum gloves, designed in collaboration with Hermès.

October 16, 2021

Talking To Birds… and Other Stories

Talking To Birds… and Other Stories is an mixed-media video installation comprised of three videos featuring some of Violette Stehli’s earliest jewelry.
The videos feature jewelry pieces inspired by or cast from animal parts (lion claws, bird beaks and bear teeth) created to serve as prostheses augmenting the human body, to strengthen the wearers bond with nature. The series, filmed in stop-motion animation, is about finding poetic and new ways to communicate with nature.
The Perth Institute of Contemporary Art is one of Australia’s leading museums. Since 1992, the Hatched National Graduate Show has presented the work of over one thousand artists alongside that of their national peers in this unique showcase of emergent talent. The exhibition aims to showcase the work of the most talented students graduating from Australian art schools each year. Following its success at the exhibition, Talking To Birds… and Other Stories was subsequently exhibited at the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery until the end of 2011.
Part of a series of three short films Talking To Birds And Other Stories presented as part of a mixed media installation to be viewed in a gallery or museum. Each piece of jewelry featured in these videos has been handcrafted using a mold of the original object: a bear's tooth, lion claws and a bird beak. These pieces have been created to reinforce our link with nature, and to help us appropriate the strengths of the animal they come from. This piece was selected to be part of the Perth Institute Of Contemporary Art's Hatched exhibition, an annual exhibition that features the work of the most promising young artists graduating from art schools across Australia. This piece has also been exhibited at the Coff's Harbour Regional Gallery. Written, directed and edited by Violette Stehli

 

 

Perth Institute of Contemporary Art’s annual Hatched Exhibition

April 1, 2013