Gone to Heaven

In this Blog, Stéphane Gaboué and other Parisians comment on life in the City of Lights.

The joyfully ghoulish aesthetic that hovered over the latest men's shows in London is now zooming in on Paris, and not only because of the hit Monsters exhibiton at the Gaîté Lyrique (more on that here). The fashion pack was served yet another dollop of fabulous creepiness at Heaven Tanudiredja's jewellery presentation, where neck sculptures and cuffs in powdered brass or white gold sprouted colourful clusters of pearls, leather, gold, and crystals, as well as tiny, unexpected details like hands, wheels, or chairs. Blow them up in your mind, and you get arty havoc.

For this new display, the Bali-Born, Antwerp-based designer actually delved into troubled psyches, naming his creations Pyromania, Trichotillomania, Anorexia Nervosa, or Agoraophobia. “The key idea here was mental disorder”, said Tanudiredja as he walked me through his sumptuous creations. “People with mental disorder live in their own world. For them, everything is beautiful. So I wanted to paint their minds”.

The chair details, for example, expressed loneliless, and the isolated hands actually evoked the notion of hands failing to hold. As for the beautiful clutch bags, the fronts sprouting spiky, thorn-like decoration were meant to summon armours, while the back sides artfully covered in pearls where his interpretation of emotions.

This graduate from the Royal Academy in Antwerp worked with Dries Van Noten for two years before branching into jewellery six years ago. “I'm a very emotional person, and for me, clothes are like armours”, Tanidiredja explained. “ "I want to tell a story, and through jewels, you can express a lot of feelings. They are pieces of a dream.”

His bijoux, all handmade by himself with the help of an assistant, are available at Dover Street Market in London.