Carole Lamotte, the greatest of Couture and Ready-to-Wear brands have and continue to entrust you, since 1919, with their wildest accessory dreams. Tell us about some crazy, extravagant pieces that Edgard Hamon is behind?
I can think of a swan-shaped necklace that we had to glue 2,200 rhinestones onto, also a sumptuous necklace made of intertwined snakes in chains and enamel. We also rereleased a necklace and a bracelet from the 50s using the chatonnage technique, working with titanium…
Today, as a supplier to the biggest names in couture, what are the primary pieces that you produce?
The belts and costume jewelry that accompany the Haute Couture and Ready-to-Wear runway shows as well as the presentations of the pre-collections.
So “Edgard Hamon: Jeweler” decided to create the Edgard Hamon prize for Costume Jewelry? Why not a prize for Costume Accessories?
Costume jewelry has taken on, in recent years, a preponderant place in the luxury sector and it’s often the accessory that logs the strongest growth. But as it so happens, in schools for fashion, applied arts, or jewelry-making, they don’t teach, or they hardly teach, the techniques for fabricating costume jewelry. And so we’ve arrived at this paradox where the students coming out of these schools often have trouble finding work, even internships, and we can’t find anyone educated in these techniques and have to teach them everything. We thought that by creating the Edgard Hamon “Espoir” prize, we would garner interest from the schools. Their reactions, enthusiastic, showed us that we were right. As far as the Edgard Hamon Prize, we wanted to help young costume jewelry designers, amongst which are certainly the future “Greats”, since they encounter a lot of difficulties in getting started and making themselves known. Furthermore we wanted to attract attention to the fact that French costume jewelry artisans have a unique savoir-faire that must never be lost.
So how does this Costume Jewelry competition work?
All the steps to take for the two Prizes are already detailed on our website (www.edgardhamon.fr), but in a nutshell, the candidates have between September and the end of December to send us their application along with all the requested items. A selection committee will meet in January to separate out the unqualified applications, then the jury will come together at the end of March’s Fashion Week at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs to allot the two prizes.
You decided to direct the candidates’ research towards works by a modern architect. Why architecture rather than painting or other fine arts?
This was the theme chosen by the selection committee that is comprised of Elie Top (Lanvin jewelry designer and jury member) and Arnaud Paix who is our manager of collections and development; we left them entirely free for the choice of theme but I find that this one offers vast possibilities for interpretation.
How will the Jury be formed? Do you already have a few individuals identified?
Yes, as I just said Elie Top payed us the kindness of immediately accepting to be a part of it, and we have the great honor to welcome Monsieur Christian Lacroix to it. But, we also have the agreement of Laurence Benaïm, Franceline Prat, Caroline de Fayet, Samuel François, Nicole Picart, Susie Lau, Clara Boissonas.
When will the Prizes be given out? Will the public have access to the designs created for the competition?
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