BRAVE OLD WORLD
Classical art laid the groundwork for new Australian sustainable jewellery label, LeJeune, with each of its pieces filtered through paintings of centuries past to create future heirlooms. By Jen Nurick.
Australian sustainable jewellery label, LeJeune.
SOMETIMES THE FRUITS of an idea appear in a daydream or chance encounter. But for Australian stylist Stephanie Yeates and English photographer Ryan Conduit, the couple and co-founders of local label LeJeune, the seeds of their jewellery designs appeared while living abroad and during visits to London’s National Portrait Gallery and Paris’s Louvre. Take the minimalist Hoop 01 earrings and Chain 01 choker, two pieces from their debut collection Essentials, the designs of which germinated from adornments seen in 16th- and 18th-century paintings.
Yeates was studying fashion design at London’s Central Saint Martins when she met Conduit, a student of fashion photography at London College of Fashion, and the two discovered a shared interest in classical art, specifically the Renaissance, Baroque
and Rococo periods. Beyond the romantic flourishes, bustles and bows observed in paintings of that time, Yeates also noticed the simple jewellery pieces, like those that had been gifted to her by her grandmother – pieces she couldn’t find in stores but felt a desire to wear. In Nicolaes Pickenoy’s Portrait of a Young Woman (1588), an overcoat draped with an oversized gold chain captured her attention, as did pared back hoop earrings she’d seen in Adélaïde LabilleGuiard’s Self-portrait with Two Pupils (1785). Both had an antique feel but their classic shapes transcended time.
Meanwhile, the couple conspired to find a project they could work on together, and with those unlikely accessories seared in Yeates’s subconscious, turned their hand to jewellery-making in 2018. “Much of the design and jewellery from these times was incredibly ornate – I make an effort to look past the excess and focus on the minute details,” explains Yeates, for whom classical paintings have proved a well of knowledge on how jewellery was worn and crafted. With no formal training between them, the couple began casting pieces in 2018 in their London home under the assumption, Conduit says, that “this is just how it’s done”. A rude awakening followed. “We realised that in making what was about 20 pieces, we used 40 or 50 litres of contaminated water,” he says of the waste. The experience jolted them to re-evaluate their design process and focus on the ethos of sustainability, which led them back to the 18th century, this time to the old-world French methods of making jewellery by hand.
Every LeJeune piece is handmade to order in Australia, where the couple now lives, using recycled silver that is gold-plated to vermeil thickness, meaning it will last longer, is safer to wear and produces zero waste. Yeates is responsible for the design and Conduit for realising her vision. “We went through 100 different designs before we landed on the collection we have now,” says Conduit. The process, he explains, involves precious metals heated, bent into shape, polished and soldered in-studio to create prototypes based on Yeates’s ideas, which are then manipulated to accommodate any minuscule changes or recycled into something new. Everything is guided by touch and feel. “I have a certain attachment to an analogue way of working, we both do,” reflects Conduit. “We don’t use anything except polishing machines to speed up the process.”
Asked about the changing role of jewellery in our lives in the face of a pandemic, Conduit believes Covid-19 has augmented our appreciation for personal objects both precious and mundane. “People are making sourdough more, people are starting to cure their own bacon,” he says. “More and more, they’re starting to value the handmade aspect of their lives.” Indeed, at a moment when our future seems uncertain, there is a universal effort to connect with the past, and what better portal between now and then than a precious piece of jewellery that shores up old memories, and shapes new ones.
At a moment when our futures seem uncertain, there is a universal effort to connect with the past, and what better portal than a precious piece of jewellery