Jewelry Designer Elie Top Gets Inspiration From His Friends

Throughout couture week in Paris in July, amid the packed schedule of lavish occasions and events, the jewellery designer Elie Prime hosted a notably intimate ceremonial dinner for 14 pals in his design studio on Rue St.-Honoré. His visitors included the fashionable mannequin and actress Marisa Berenson, who mentioned dinner at Mr. Prime’s was at all times one among her favourite invites.

“The dinner was so enjoyable, heat and joyful,” mentioned Ms. Berenson, who lingered till previous midnight. She has been near the designer since they met 15 years in the past at a buddy’s home in Tangier, Morocco. “The world as we speak is such that what’s most treasured is to encompass your self with high quality individuals that you just respect, and Elie surrounds himself with individuals he loves,” she mentioned.

Mr. Prime’s cozy dinners remind Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis, the journalist and socialite, of an earlier period. “That is what I think about dinners had been like within the Seventies,” she mentioned, “when trend wasn’t so business, and it was a few designer’s pals and entourage and whoever impressed them.” (Ms. von Thurn und Taxis didn’t come to the July dinner, however she usually attends Mr. Prime’s gatherings.)

Throughout a time when massive jewellery homes like Tiffany & Firm and Bulgari, each owned by the posh behemoth LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, are investing thousands and thousands in whisking clients to glamorous destinations for grand events and are paying model ambassadors and celebrities to put on their jewellery, it may be laborious for smaller manufacturers to compete. Mr. Prime, nevertheless, has chosen a unique path.

His jewellery is bought primarily by way of his Paris salon and studio, the place he’s usually accessible to fulfill with guests. He additionally often does pop-up promoting occasions in Gstaad, Switzerland and New York — a trunk present was scheduled Nov. 13-26 at Bergdorf Goodman — and, for the primary time, he exhibited on the PAD London artwork honest in October. The help of his pals, who put on his designs, has additionally given the designer visibility.

“Many ladies who put on his jewellery are additionally his pals,” Ms. von Thurn und Taxis mentioned. “We purchase his jewellery as a result of we like it.”

The Affect of Associates

The designer’s trendy confidants have influenced Mr. Prime’s designs. “I’m drawn to highly effective, unbiased ladies,” he mentioned throughout an interview this summer time. “I think about these are the kinds of ladies who’re carrying my items; they offer me a temper.”

On the ceremonial dinner in July, Mr. Prime unveiled his Twist jewellery assortment, which everybody was making an attempt on. Impressed by the shapes of coiled snakes, the twisted 18-karat gold and distressed silver items shaped intertwining S shapes in openwork pendants, earrings and rings, most with diamond accents ($6,800 to $22,400). There additionally had been one-of-a-kind snake rings set with massive stones, reminiscent of a five-carat old-mine-cut diamond and a four-carat emerald.

“Twist jogs my memory of the large chain necklaces worn in portraits from the late Center Ages and early Renaissance, however these are somewhat punk rock,” Mr. Prime mentioned. His jewellery themes have been wide-ranging, from his 2015 debut assortment, Mécaniques Célestes, which featured gold sphere pendants and rings that twist open to disclose one other design, to a five-piece excessive jewellery assortment of quirky animals, Magica Naturae, introduced in 2021.

“His jewellery is trendy,” Ms. Berenson mentioned, “however on the identical time has a baroque high quality so that they appear like they may very well be from one other century. It isn’t like something you see on the market.”

When designing, Mr. Prime mentioned, he sketches a girl carrying the jewellery, her angle, hair and trend.

“I attempt to think about the best way a girl will put on the jewellery, what clothes and methods to create a stability.”

A Heritage in Style

His holistic strategy to jewellery comes from nearly 20 years of working within the trend business, the place he met a lot of his longtime pals. Mr. Prime started his profession in 1997 as an illustrator in Yves Saint Laurent’s studio, the place he met Alber Elbaz. In 2001, he adopted Mr. Elbaz to Lanvin, the place he collaborated with the designer for greater than a decade on oversized, creative costume jewelry earlier than leaving to determine his personal model.

The jeweler’s consideration to element caught the eye of Inès de La Fressange when Mr. Prime was working as freelance designer on Roger Vivier purses, from 2004 to 2012.

“I noticed him making technical drawings after which making them into cardboard maquettes,” mentioned the French mannequin and designer, who additionally has turn out to be an in depth buddy. “I mentioned to him why don’t you may have an assistant make the maquettes, and he informed me that by making them himself, he learns extra in regards to the building and particulars.”

“You’ll be able to acknowledge his jewellery instantly, though the designs are all totally different,” she mentioned. “It has actual fashion and a focus to element.”

Ms. de La Fressange mentioned she noticed similarities between Mr. Prime and Karl Lagerfeld, the prolific designer who thought-about her a muse. “Elie is the one one who I might examine to Karl,” she mentioned. “Karl had an enormous information of tradition and of the historical past of trend, costume and jewellery, like Elie does.”

Mr. Prime has been curious since his childhood in northern France, studying and exploring every little thing from area and mechanics to classic costumes and artwork. All these pursuits make their manner into his jewellery: For instance, the thought for his Mécaniques Célestes assortment got here from an exhibition catalog of seventeenth and 18th century astronomical clocks and celestial measuring devices.

“Elie’s items have a persona they usually’re very particular person, that’s why I like to put on them,” Ms. Berenson mentioned. One in every of her favorites is his Étoile Mystérieuse hexagonal pendant, which she says makes her really feel empowered.

For Ms. Von Thurn und Taxis, Mr. Prime’s manner of setting massive stones in whimsical items or in distressed silver makes them straightforward to put on day by day. “He makes use of lovely stones however in a manner that’s extra rock ‘n’ roll and fewer intimidating.” She wears his massive protect ring with a 1.5-carat emerald on a regular basis, which she mentioned, “seems like a bit of physique armor.”

“There may be numerous jewellery as we speak that’s technically lovely however somewhat bit boring,” she mentioned. “Within the ’20s, 30s and 40s there have been artists like Suzanne Belperron and Jeanne Toussaint creating jewellery, they usually had the method, the fashion, and nice creativeness. Elie works on this custom.”

To some extent Mr. Prime’s model is an insider’s marque because it isn’t extensively accessible, however his followers say that’s a part of its attraction. “There’s a actual luxurious in carrying one thing uncommon, lovely and one thing not lots of people have as we speak,” Ms. de la Fressange mentioned.

Mr. Prime mentioned he took pleasure in having ladies put on his designs. “I benefit from the sensation of seeing a girl meet the jewel when it’s a excellent match,” he mentioned. “Which means I did my job.”

And his pals at all times cheer him on. “Final evening a buddy was at a celebration in New York, and he or she texted me an image of one other lady’s hand with my big snake ring with an emerald,” Mr. Prime mentioned. “That made me actually completely happy.”