(Platinum, steel diamond bangle. Belperron 1935)

Suzanne Belperron

Suzanne Belperron has achieved almost iconic status. Hugely talented her work is considered by many to be an art form.

From 1921 she worked for the fi rm of René Boivin alongside Jeanne Boivin and Juliette Moutard. In 1933, with the encouragement and support of Bernard Herz, pearl supplier to Boivin, she left to work on her own.

She was completely in tune with what was wanted by a younger generation, mixing precious and semi precious stones within curvaceous and sensual designs – it is said that she never designed a fl at jewel.

Fiercely independent and opinionated she insisted that her clients who ranged from the Duchess of Windsor to Frank Sinatra came in person to her small shop at Rue de Chateaudon.

At the outbreak of war Herz was interned and Belperron was approached by Tiffany’s to work for them. She declined and determined to keep going, throughout in Paris – which she did, thereafter continuing with Herz’s son Jean and trading under the name Herz-Belperron.

Working until the 1960’s she never signed a piece believing that her work was so distinctive that the jewel itself was her signature – she was right.