T Magazine: Brand to Know: Fine Jewelry, Made From Industrial Materials
Jacques-Elie Ribeyron doesn’t speak like a typical fashion designer. “I work very fast when I design, actually,” he says. “I draw these files and send them to the 3-D printer. If I spend more than two to three days on it, I get bored.” That may explain the minimal, industrial aesthetic of his year-old accessories and jewelry brand, Ribeyron, which draws as much from objects found at hardware stores and bondage shops as it does from the automotive artworks of John Chamberlain.
Ribeyron, 31, was born in Canada and initially trained as a product designer before turning to fashion. After graduating with a degree in industrial design from Montreal University, he studied at L’Ecole Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL) in Switzerland before moving to London for an internship with Tom Dixon in 2010. “Doing jewelry is like product design — I enjoy the process of designing something,” he says. “The tools are the same, but it’s just the objects that are different.” Despite winning the Prix d’Excellence for his graduate project at ECAL, Ribeyron felt frustrated by the length of time it took to create a piece of furniture. “With product design, the function is important, but it can block many ideas. The good thing about fashion is it’s very quick; it’s not like designing a table or couch. It’s good not to overthink things. Now it’s about developing things very fast.”
With Ribeyron, the designer hopes to apply the skills learned from product design — and use them to make things that people can actually wear. The brand’s fall 2016 collection, its second offering, features a deconstructed take on familiar, everyday objects. Earrings are made from strips of leather and perforated with rings; hardware-store plumbing clamps are reinterpreted as 18k-gold and rhodium screw bracelets; helmet bags are remade with industrial mesh into clutches. There’s a sensual, slyly humorous element to his work — and he hopes that the pieces will be worn by both men and women. “I do not want to dictate that one piece is for boys and the other for a girl,” he says. “I really feel people should wear what they are comfortable with, and I appreciate the diversity it creates.”
After creating the 3-D prototypes, Ribeyron works with a number of small manufacturers in Paris whose traditional ways of working are challenged by his unconventional methods and materials. “At the beginning it was a bit of a confrontation, because they were used to working with precious materials and didn’t understand why I was doing plastic and resin pieces,” he says. “But I explained that the precious element comes from the handicraft that goes into it.” Polyurethane is an unusual material for fine jewelry, “but I love how it makes fluid shapes,” he says. “I love to push the people I work with. I like the relationship with manufacturers where you can have this dialogue and I really can follow the whole development.”
While Ribeyron has been working in Paris for the last five years, he still keeps one foot back home: He recently collaborated with the Canadian designer and LVMH Prize finalist Vejas Kruszewski on jewelry for his fall/winter 2016 collection, and currently counts Opening Ceremony and LN-CC among his stockists. Next, Ribeyron plans to open an e-commerce store and introduce other product lines at a later date. For now, he readily admits that his jewelry “is not for everyone. But something a bit bad can be very interesting.” He adds: “I don’t mind if people wear a piece of mine only one time. For me there is no point to do this otherwise — the pleasure is to try new things.”
