EYE ON DESIGN: James de Givenchy
By Ellen Hanson

Opening the doors to James de Givenchy’s Fifth Avenue showroom is like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when the film goes from black-and-white to glorious Technicolor. After exiting an unassuming hallway, your senses are overtaken first by the voluptuous orange-and-brown lacquer cabinets, the exquisite collections of antique wooden deities, sculptural branches of orange coral, silver cups and antique mirror frames. Then your brain begins to register the subtle scent of, what — lilacs, orange blossoms? (This is from a scented candle created by Givenchy and his brother to honor their father, the former head of Givenchy perfumes.) It takes several moments for the pleasures of these sensations to settle, before one’s eyes are magnetically pulled to the glimmering little panes behind which the real showstoppers reside.

Givenchy, whose uncle is renowned fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy, was not drawn to the world of fashion. Instead, he came to New York from his native France to study graphic design at the Fashion Institute of Technology, followed by stints at Christie’s and later Verdura. Once during a fine jewelry sale at Christie’s, his uncle came to see the preview and, as James says, “I wanted to show him something interesting.” After viewing the most impressive lots, the elder Givenchy spotted a piece made from zircons and gold and exclaimed, “Did you see this pretty thing?” For James this seems to have been an “aha” moment because, as he tells it, “After that, I started looking at jewelry in a completely different way.”

The pairing of olive nut seeds with coral cabochons, platinum and glass beads is one of the unexpected combinations one might find in the James Givenchy showroom. Givenchy likens himself to a chef “trying to make magic by mixing and matching the finest ingredients.” And like a great chef, along with his creative vision, he brings a strong intellectual component to his work. Jewelry “needs complexity, not just the number of carats or weight of gold.”

His original treatment of materials along with bold color combinations and unexpected use of scale have set him squarely in the company of such legendary designers as Jean Schlumberger and Suzanne Belperron. With workshops just around the corner, Givenchy is able to closely monitor fabrication of his innovative creations, but says “every time we make a new piece I’m amazed we finish it: We didn’t burn the stones! We didn’t break or chip them!”

In addition to doing work for his own company, Taffin, Givenchy is the creative director for the joint venture between Sotheby’s and the Steinmetz Diamond Group called Sotheby’s Diamonds, where he creates one-of-a-kind products for limited-edition collections. Though traditional treatments using round diamonds and predominantly colorless stones were not his “usual business,” he turned preconceived notions on end about how these expensive stones should be set. He tells us, “It all started with [the] stones and then I would build the best solution for the stone; now I approach it differently. Now I’m looking for interesting mediums to mix with stones — recycled guns and bayonets from WWII. Japanese steel has a great quality and blackens beautifully when you heat it — it is noble without being rare. I think it’s great that we take something that was once a weapon and turn it into an art object.” Some of his wilder concoctions, with stones worth five figures and up, include mixing the diamonds with rubber straps to create “rather kinky” bracelets and necklaces; and a personal favorite are stones set upside down. Givenchy muses, “Diamonds have a wonderful brilliance. Even backwards they look great.”

When asked where he is headed with his next collection and what his inspiration might be, Givenchy asserts “I hate to fall into something I KNOW will work. There is more to the trip than doing the obvious.”

And he contemplates, “How wonderful it is to have had the opportunity to work on developing a brand that is becoming recognizable for its quality — a driven product and original designs in a time when everything looks the same and ‘brand confusion’ seems to be the norm.”

With two beautiful muses in wife Gina and daughter Stella and a relentless drive to innovate, one wonders if ruby slippers can’t be far behind?