Panconesi Will Make You Rethink Everything You Know About Jewelry
Marco Panconesi Jewelry
To buy, wear, and love Panconesi jewelry, the new collection by Florentine designer Marco Panconesi, you’ll have to give up the idea of a jewelry box. It’s not that you won’t want to collect and cherish his pieces for decades to come, it’s just that “jewelry box” sells his vision a little short. Yes, it’s jewelry in the most traditional sense of the word—earrings, necklaces, rings made of sterling silver, gold plating, crystals, enamel, and gems—but it’s also sort of magic. How else to explain a golden sphere earring that, with the flick of a hook, unfurls into a chandelier of colored enamel? Or a hoop that spins upwards to become an ear cuff? Each of the designer’s pieces is more than they seem at face value, shifting shapes and redefining their function as the wearer pleases. It’s a thrilling proposition for the jewelry market and one that has made instant hits of his four debut items that arrived on Ssense this week. So ditch the jewelry box and get ready for pieces that warrant a whole cabinet of curiosities.
Of course to call what Panconesi crafts in his Paris studio “magic” is also an unfitting turn of phrase, even if the final products are as magical and majestic as can be. Raised in the city that is home to Galileo’s telescopes and Michelangelo’s David, Panconesi blends the science of engineering with his design process, allowing his playful dreams to come to life. “When I have an idea, I think about it very practically in the sense of what I want to communicate and what the movement should be. I go into prototyping myself,” he says. “I can make little maquettes and prototypes in Paris in my studio and I try to study the movement and the mechanics myself. When the idea is formed and I’m ready to sketch it out and design, I pass it over to my factories.” So it’s a bit of fashion world alchemy, then—and one that’s already charmed the likes of Rihanna and Paloma Elsesser, who have both been sporting Panconesi’s jewelry over the past couple of months.
The designer is also a part of Rihanna’s Fenty enterprise, working with the musician on accessories for her ready-to-wear collection. But before he was on team Rih, he started his career at Givenchy with Riccardo Tisci, moving to Balenciaga with Alexander Wang and then Demna Gvasalia. It was there that his offbeat jewelry designs started to make waves in the industry. Soon, he had gone freelance and picked up collaborations with Peter Pilotto and Mulberry. “It was then that I first thought about going a bit solo,” he says. Ultimately, he took the plunge last year, devising his eponymous collection and quietly showing it to press and retailers in Paris. “I think the main focus on why I decided to start my own brand is to be free,” he says. “Free to express myself, my creativity, and speak my own language.”
The key vocabulary of that Panconesi language is fun. Movement and playfulness are at the core of each of his pieces, whether it’s a ring that looks like an earring or those shape-shifting hoops. “It was one of the first designs that I did for my line, and I think that by designing that and trying to launch the prototypes, I saw this shape as an expression of what my brand could be,” he says of the hoops. “It’s a really organic and simple shape, and the gesture itself, how you put it up on the ear, is very genuine and spontaneous… In that shape, I really see the core of the brand in the sense of movement and in the sense of reinterpreting objects and jewelry that already exist. It’s a simple hoop, but how do you make a simple hoop modern?”
For now, Panconesi’s simple hoops will be available at Ssense—and soon other international retailers. But who knows what the future will hold: perhaps exclusive drops, perhaps new collaborations, perhaps a sustainable initiative. “I just want to keep it very much about my instincts, so that when I have a new piece of jewelry that excites me, I could just do a drop online or partner up with a retailer to do an exclusive or a collaboration. I think I see it going in that direction,” the designer says. “As a young brand, I think we need to be doing something different as well.” He mentions launching furniture, handbags, and finding artisanal communities around the world to collaborate with as big ideas for his future.
As yet, the Panconesi famiglia, as he calls it, will continue to grow out of his Florentine base. “I love to use the word famiglia—family—speaking about my approach to design and my approach to work,” he says. “It’s not something that is untouchable. I want to make something tangible that you would love to shop and own and you could see yourself in.”
Originally Appeared on Vogue
