Jeweler Walter Lampl, an example of the American dream, was born in New York in 1895, was a newspaper boy. But as a teenager, he began to make watch chains and key rings himself.

Today, a tiny gold pendant for a bracelet made by him costs about 670-700 US dollars. Silver ones cost about 45-55 US dollars.

There are also rarities – like a soda machine with mechanics. A miniature pendant for a bracelet made by Walter made of gold.

But the main rarity was a Japanese jewelry collection, which included Chinese temple gates, a Japanese groom and bride (two paired brooches, clips for fur and a coat), and a Big Geisha. They were patented on May 7, 1940. I give one of three patents below.

The cost of a Japanese (sometimes called Chinese) pair on the antique market today ranges from 850 US dollars to 2 thousand, depending on the state of preservation.

But the most interesting thing is that Walter adored mechanisms and created unique tiny pendants in the form of various devices, from a film projector to barrel organs. They moved. So Walter introduced the fashion for mechanics in jewelry. Examples of his patents are below.

Walter released hearts for all the months with flowers according to the zodiac, based on his wife’s sketches. And then he received the rights to present bracelets with keychains as souvenirs at the World Fair and on TV shows as prizes.

And if he developed the mechanics himself, then the designs for the brooches and pendants were invented by his wife Sylvia and the women who worked in his factories – often these were Jewish families that Walter took out of Germany during the Holocaust

He also came up with a special pendant to support the British army and donated it to the British military support fund in 1939, there was even a miniature flag on the box with the mechanism.

Walter was loved by all the newspaper boys in New York, because in the cold he bought up all the newspaper editions, just so that the children would not freeze on the streets – he remembered his hungry childhood very well and how he froze, selling newspapers…

He died in the midst of the Christmas holiday at his company on December 25, 1945. His wife and son continued his business, but their ideas were no longer enough for more than replicating pendants for bracelets. They say that his talent as an inventor of miniature mechanisms in jewelry and his generous soul, his defense of the poor and humiliated, lived long after his death. He was 50. And the last masterpieces that Walter made himself are almost 74 years old and more.

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Bernard Instone (1891-1987) was a very interesting British jeweller, designer and silversmith of the early 20th century. Instone was born in Birmingham and his artistic talent was evident from a very early age. He was only twelve years old when he won a scholarship to the School of Jewellery. His mentor was the famous jeweller and figure in the British Arts and Crafts movement, Arthur Gaskin, with whom he studied silversmithing from 1904 to 1912.

After leaving school, Instone worked for a time in the studio of the famous jeweller John Paul Cooper, and then studied in Berlin with Emil Lettre, court jeweller to Kaiser Wilhelm II. In October 1913, he returned to England and began teaching at the School of Jewellery and at the same time began to produce his first independent works. In 1920, he founded his own jewellery and silversmith workshop, Langstone Silver Works.

This brooch, like other early works by Instone before he found his own distinctive style, shows the influence of his teachers Arthur Gaskin and John Paul Cooper.

Instone’s true inspiration was nature. His brooches often resemble bouquets or wreaths, with gemstones acting as flowers, and the elongated hand-made silver leaves that frame them are now considered his signature. Another distinctive feature of Instone’s work is the use of enamel. Many of his pieces are decorated solely with enamel, without the use of gemstones. And yet, his jewellery “bouquets” have a special charm. His favourite gemstones were citrines and amethysts.

A respected jeweller and prolific designer, Instone became president of the Birmingham Jewellers and Silversmiths’ Association in 1937. In addition to creating his own designs, Instone made jewellery for other jewellers such as Sybil Dunlop. These pieces were marked with Sybil’s mark: “SD”.

Beginning in the 1940s, Bernard Instone’s clientele included Liberty, London’s largest department store.

Instone’s two sons continued the family business when he retired in 1963 and moved to the Cotswolds, where he continued to design.

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Valentin Vidaurreta is a Mexican artist who turned from painting to jewelry making in the early 1930s. He came from a wealthy family and began his career as a painter known in Mexican Cubist circles.

In 1931, Vidaurreta began working for jeweler Fred Davis at Sanborn’s department stores in Mexico City. He traveled frequently to Europe and Taxco, Mexico. In 1936, jeweler Hector Aguilar arrived there and the two became friends. When Aguilar opened his own workshop, Taller Borda, Vidaurreta supported it and worked there from the 1940s to the early 1950s.

Vidaurreta was inspired by the Baroque architecture of Taxco and Art Nouveau trends. He often used floral and natural motifs in his work.

In addition to working in other workshops, Vidaurreta created jewelry under his own brand. He also did architectural commissions in Taxco, including building a hacienda that he eventually bought and called home.

Vidaureta died suddenly of a heart attack in 1959.

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Viktoria Hayman is a Russian luxury jewelry designer who founded her business in St. Petersburg in 2002.

She got inspiration for her jewelry designs while visiting the State Hermitage Museum in her hometown. She was particularly inspired by the museum’s collections that originated from ancient Rome.

Since then, the designer has traveled around the world to find unique components for her jewelry. Her work uses a variety of natural materials, from wood to shells and inexpensive gemstones.

In the mid-2000s, Viktoria Hayman’s designs appeared in fashion and women’s magazines such as Elle, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Good Housekeeping. Since the beginning, her jewelry lines have been sold in many boutiques and high-end stores such as Neiman Marcus.

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Vivianna Torun Bulow-Hube is a famous designer from Sweden, a post-war legend of the jewelry world, the author of the sensational collections “CONTINUITY” and “MOBIUS”.

Vivianna Torun most often used the name Torun. She was a silversmith and had her own studios in several countries: Germany, Indonesia and Switzerland. She used natural stones such as quartz, lapis lazuli and agate and silver. Her jewelry was quite massive, often had a modern style.

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Polya Medvedeva Jewellery is a jewellery line founded in Berlin (Germany) in 2010 by artist Polya Medvedeva.

The author draws her first inspiration for the collections from painting, as well as from philosophy, turning to such theorists as Se He (China, 5th century), Mikhail Lifshitz, Gilles Deleuze.

The first collection appeared after a Vipassana retreat, where the author had visions of the first products. Gradually, they were organized according to ancient religious myths, such as Mesopotamian, Shinto, Eastern European myths.

Polya Medvedeva’s products immediately received support from such publications as Harper’s Bazaar UA and Vogue (UA, RU).

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Thorbjorn Lie-Jorgensen was a Norwegian artist, jeweller and design teacher. He designed and produced jewellery for David-Andersen.

In 1927, Lie-Jorgensen joined the staff of David-Andersen as a silversmith. He helped the company move from classical functionalism to the Scandinavian Art Nouveau era of design.

In 1939, Lie-Jorgensen left David-Andersen to work as a department head at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Oslo. He continued to design jewellery for David-Andersen on a freelance basis.

In the mid-1950s, Lie-Jorgensen received awards for his jewellery design at exhibitions in Milan and Munich.

He died in 1961, still working at NCAD.

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Tone Vigeland (1938 – 2024) was a Norwegian silver designer.

From 1955 through 1957, Vigeland pursued studies at the Norwegian National Academy of Crafts and Art Industries. By the start of the 1960s, she had established herself as a jewelry designer. She consistently opposed industrial manufacturing, favoring instead the creation of forms utilizing diverse substances.

Her creations are displayed in galleries globally, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum of Europe, the Pinacothèque d’Art Moderne, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, along with the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt Museum of Art and Design in New York, the Smithsonian Design Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

In 1988, Vigeland received the Prince Eugen Medal, and in 1996, she was elevated to Commander of the Order of St. Olav.

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Tapio Wirkkala (02.06.1915 – 19.05.1985) is one of the most important Finnish designers who achieved international recognition. He was able to work with all materials: metal, glass, plastic, ceramics, wood, plywood, stone, silver.

His boundless love for nature helped him poeticize the most prosaic objects. Having spent years observing the glaciers of Lapland, he managed to capture the fluidity and transparency of water. He managed to elevate the everyday – be it a vase, a decanter or a Finlandia bottle. He is the author of a series of Finnish banknotes, which were in circulation from 1955 to 1981. His name is associated with the country’s post-war exports: of all the Finnish designers, he was the one who was best known abroad.

It is noticeable from the photographs how, with age, Wirkkala transformed into a bearded spirit from Finnish pagan mythology. This is not surprising: all his life he studied archaic legends, the culture of small settlements and ancient tools. It was important for him to tune in, not to fuss and feel each material: they say that even the masters of Murano (he spent a lot of time on the Venetian island, working for Venini) recognized him as one of their own.

All of Wirkkala’s awards and prizes – the Pro Finland award in 1955, the Grand Prix of the Milan Triennale, the prize of the World Fair in Brussels (1957) and the golden Obelisk Domus in Milan (1963) – were received precisely for penetrating into the essence of the material.

Tapio Wirkkala was born in the city of Hanko, in the south of Finland. From childhood, he watched his father at work: he was an artist-craftsman. Having mastered the techniques of working with wood and metal, Tapio entered the Helsinki School of Arts and Crafts.

After finishing school and the difficult war years, Wirkkala married Linnea Ruth Brück, a Finnish artist, designer and specialist in artistic ceramics, in 1945. She later became a famous figure in Finnish modernism: her pointillist relief map “Sunny City” still decorates the Helsinki City Hall, and her complex relief “Ice Drift” – the presidential residence Mäntyniemi. She worked for almost 50 years in the art department of the Arabia company. Tapio and Ruth had two children: a son became an interior designer, and a daughter was involved in modern art. The family traveled a lot and the spouses did not quarrel, despite noticeable stylistic differences in their work.

In 1946, the Iittala company organized a glass competition. Wirkkala, having become the winner (he shared first place with Kai Frank), remained working for it for the rest of his life. As art director, from 1947 to 1985 Wirkkala created more than 400 objects and collections for Iittala: they were later refined using modern technology. However, at the time of the creation of the most popular series in the history of the company, Ultima Thule, no other methods existed except traditional ones.

Wirkkala dreamed of conveying the melting of the glaciers of Lapland in glass: he endlessly observed natural phenomena. At first, it took many months to cut out a wooden form (the very first form has survived to this day), then thousands of hours to perfect the technique of blown glass. And the effect of melting ice in glass was achieved.

By the mid-50s, Wirkkala’s popularity was growing, and various companies dreamed of collaborating with him. The company Soinne & Kni approached him. For over thirty years (since 1956) he was commissioned to design by the famous company Rosenthal, and he worked even longer for the Finnish company N. Westerback / Kultakestus. He also spent a year (1955-1956) collaborating with the legendary American studio of Raymond Loewy – Raymond Loewy Associates. He devoted three years to teaching: from 1951 to 1954 he was the art director of the Institute of Industrial Design in Helsinki.

In 1966 he founded his own studio in Helsinki: Design Tapio Wirkkala, and at the same time began collaborating with the famous Venetian company Venini. It is amazing how he managed to alternate intensive foreign work in Germany, Mexico and Italy with many months of seclusion – he loved silence.

The Puukoo utility knife, designed by Wirkkala based on traditional Lappish knives. The model enjoyed great popularity and is still sold at online auctions.

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Anna Macchieri Rossi developed her ideas about jewellery while mastering the art of watch design. She worked for over 15 years with leading luxury watch brands, including Bulgari, Cartier and Jaeger LeCoultre, learning all aspects of the field.

Anna lived for a long time in Le Sentier, a village in the Vallée de Joux, where, as she says, there were only “watches and snow”.

From an interview with Anna Macchieri Rossi:

I had the idea of ​​transferring the world of watches and their mobility to jewellery for a long time, I couldn’t stop thinking about it – it was a powerful creative impulse. I always wanted to create jewellery inspired by the theme of time. It’s a kind of connection between memory and imagination: through memory we connect with our roots and traditions, and imagination can inspire us and transport us to the future. Memory is our foundation, and imagination is our dreams.

The whole process as a whole, because it’s a real journey – at each stage there are joys and difficulties. An idea or “insight” can come to me at any time of the day or night, and I urgently need to record it, no matter what is at hand – a train ticket, a napkin in a restaurant, sand on the beach.

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