Fred Samuel, who based the jewelry home Fred in Paris in 1936, counted famend display screen stars, society darlings and artists of his day—reminiscent of Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Hutton and Pablo Picasso—amongst his shut acquaintances and clientele. Now, the Maison continues that good affiliation with up to date celebrities: actors Dew Jirawat and Yang Mi are counted among the many mates of the model, Wonyoung from the Ok-pop group IVE was named Fred’s Korea ambassador in September 2022, and now Jin from the boyband BTS and Chinese language actress Guan Xiaotong have been named the Maison’s world model ambassadors.
Recent from his navy discharge, all eyes have been on BTS vocalist Jin when he made his first official look for Fred as a torch bearer on the Paris Olympics, carrying nearly completely items from its signature Power 10 assortment and single-handedly bringing renewed focus to the jeweller’s iconic motif.
The maison’s strongest pillar, the Power 10 got here into being in 1966. Samuel observed his son Henri remodeling a modest braid of crusing cables and a snap hook into a home made bracelet for his spouse, and Samuel recreated that idea with twisted metal threads and a gold clasp, paying homage to sturdy ropes and horseshoe-shaped bow shackles discovered on crusing boats. He named the bracelet in reference to the Beaufort wind pressure scale, an estimate of wind power on a scale of 0 to 12, with pressure 10 denoting a storm.
Samuel won’t have anticipated the transformative impression his genderless sports activities jewelry would deliver. The distillation of his love of the solar, the ocean, crusing, and the balmy vitality of his native Buenos Aires and the French Riviera, Power 10 took a rugged, quotidian inspiration and made it a valuable expression of audacity and optimism, whereas retaining a relaxed air. Within the years since, the Power 10 assortment has grown to embody bracelets, earrings, necklaces, rings, and even eyewear, with buckle motifs in various dimensions, crafted from totally different metals, set with a dizzying array of gems, and paired with woven cable cords in colors that span the complete seen spectrum.
And extra not too long ago, Power 10 has diversified into extra specialised ranges. In 2021, Fred launched the Power 10 Winch line of rings, earrings, necklaces and bracelets supposed for males, devoted to exhibiting the great thing about the braided cable, resembling rope wound round a winch on a sailboat, like thread on a spool. The next yr, a high-jewellery interpretation of Power 10 appeared within the Monsieur Fred Interior Gentle assortment because the Power 10 Profitable Spirit bangle, with an outsized buckle reduce from a single aquamarine, laid atop diamonds.
Launched in 2023, the Roland Garros capsule version of Power 10 options shiny orange within the woven cables and a mandarin garnet on the buckle, an homage to the clay tennis courts of the French Open, whereas the Comfortable Blue Shades version launched final summer time reimagined the 4 predominant collections of the maison—Power 10, Likelihood Infinie, Ache de Sucre, Fairly Lady—with blue gems of accelerating depth, from aquamarines to blue topaz to sapphires. And now, the most recent iterations of Power 10 consists of mid-jewellery double-strand necklaces in yellow gold or white gold and set with brilliant-cut white diamonds, along with massive mannequin bracelets and single earrings with the identical interpretation—a scintillating suite befitting the maison famend because the Sunshine Jeweller.
Images: Jaya Khidir
Artwork Course: Marisa Xin
Images Assistants: Ng Ming and Syed Abdullah
This story first appeared within the September difficulty of GRAZIA Singapore.
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