THIS IS FOR THE JEWELRY SUPPLEMENT FOR 11/14
LONDON – For the designer and gemologist Cora Sheibani, jewelry is much more than a status symbol, a decorative object or a talisman to drive evil eyes away.
Jewelry to her can be as edifying as a history book, as thrilling as a science experiment, or as mouthwatering as a marbled Gugelhopf cake from her native Switzerland.
Sheibani also believes that the best design lies in imperfection, and she often finds herself working with cloudy stones, or lesser-known cuts, to create her spare and colorful statement jewelry.
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Her latest collection, Facets and Form, will make its debut next month and aims to highlight the unsung skills of the gem cutters with whom she’s been working for years.
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“Diamond cutting is a science, and the gem cutter has to think about how light bends and refracts, how it bounces back. It requires a lot of calculations,” said Sheibani, adding that cutting is also an applied art.
“People think design is all about the metal work and how you put things together, but actually gem cutters can be designers in their own right. This collection is about showing people that there are many ways to cut gemstones,” said the designer from her small showroom and office on Bruton Lane in Mayfair.
Sheibani said it’s rare that any jeweler would combine more than two cuts in the same design, but she’s done just that. Her latest creations are a glorious mosaic of color, and different types of faceting.
Her Tetris jabot brooch showcases six smoky quartz and three aquamarine stones. In total, there are seven different types of cuts set in champagne gold.
It’s an arresting piece, and Sheibani said she’d like to see someone with a big personality, like her old friend Ozwald Boateng, wear it on the red carpet.
Another design, the Timeline ring, tells the history of diamond cutting in 12 stones. It showcases point, table and rose cut rocks, a few of which Sheibani has adapted for contemporary life.
She pointed out that with a traditional point cut diamond “you’d be scratching the leather of your handbag all the time. So we’ve had to modify it slightly. It’s the very first diamond cut, and the cutter said it needed to be in the ring.”
The collection also includes earrings and rings made from stones of various cuts and colors such as gray sapphires and spinels.
For the earrings, Sheibani is using platinum, which is less expensive, more robust, and lighter than gold – although it’s trickier to handle. It’s more brittle than gold, and harder to bend and shape.
“You have to be much more skilled to work with platinum. It requires separate tools, and you have to work quicker and faster when you are handling it,” said Sheibani.
In addition to showcasing the gem cutters’ skills, Facets and Form also combines Sheibani’s passion for history, the decorative arts, science and problem-solving.
The catalogue for the collection is filled with puzzles and games, and is the latest in a series of fun, interactive books she’s created to go with the collections. In the past Sheibani has done a coloring book, a cookbook with pastry and dessert recipes, and a series of essays on cacti, which she grows – unbelievably – at home in England.
Past collections include Glow, which included stones that turn flourescent – green, pink or yellow – under UV light. Sheibani said those stone have long been perceived as “not pure” which is why she loves working with them.
Like most gemologists she travels with a loop and a small UV light on her keychain so that at a moment’s notice she can flash the latter on a stone to see if glows.
Another collection, Copper Mould, drew inspiration from the pastries she grew up with as a child.
A jeweler friend in Switzerland made mini copper cake molds, which she turned into rings made with gemstones such as green and pink opal and lapis lazuli. The jewels were shaped like cakes, ice cream cones, linzer tortes, and cream tartlets.
Sheibani spent her childhood steeped in art and design, and graduated with an art history degree from New York University. She indulged her love of science, by getting a degree in gemology from GIA in London.
Her father is Bruno Bischofberger, the Swiss art dealer, collector and champion of 20th century artists, including Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Her American mother, Christina “Yoyo” Bischofberger, is also lifelong collector and supporter of the arts.
“I grew up in a household where someone working in the decorative arts, if they were good, was as important and valued as a painter, a sculptor or a designer. Typography, textile and jewelry design were never considered secondary art forms,” said Sheibani, a married mother of three who’s based in London.
She also loves the clarity, and reliability, of science, and applies both passions to her designs.
“I have a very chaotic brain and science is logical, and very satisfying. I think that’s why I don’t like very complicated jewelry. I like more simple, and minimal design,” she said.
She does not consider herself an artist. “I’m a jeweler. I have a function, and unlike an artist I have to problem-solve. My jewelry can’t be too heavy, it has to be comfortable and flattering. Artists don’t have to consider those things. But I like those constraints. And I became a jeweler because I like to wear jewelry — it was a means to an end,” she said with big smile.
Sheibani also likes sparking off other designers. In 2011, she created jewelry inspired by the sky for the London designer Edeline Lee, who was making her debut, and the two have remained close friends.
Sheibani created silver cloud brooches with diamond drops of rain for Lee’s debut collection. She has also dreamed up brooch “sets” of tiny birds that could be scattered over a jacket lapel or dress.
Embracing imperfection, she left some of the pieces tarnished. “I don’t mind tarnished silver, that’s what clouds look like sometimes,” Sheibani said at the time.
Lee said the two “put so much love into that project. Zeina Durra [the director and writer] shot a little film for it that’s still up on YouTube. I learned a lot from Cora about how to dress a woman who has serious jewelry.”
She described Sheibani’s work as “solid and considered, yet playful. They are immaculately made, beautiful objects. Over the years of our friendship, I have often turned to Cora for her thoughts and opinions on the projects that I am working on.”
The best part about Sheibani’s collections is that they are never finished. All of the designs, even the oldest ones, are made-to-order. And, because each stone is different, she never produces the same piece twice, which means those pastries, flouro rocks, and diamond raindrops are always delivered fresh.