Byredo set to launch fine jewellery as a permanent product category with its ‘Virasaat’ collection

The collection is inspired by founder Ben Gorham’s Indian heritage and the indelible mark left on him by the authentic, expressive traditions of hip-hop culture. Virasaat will include 18-karat gold and sterling-silver pieces

France: Paris-based Byredo is launching fine jewellery as a permanent product category, starting with 18-karat gold and sterling-silver pieces at the end of November.

The collection is called Virasaat, the Hindi word for ‘inheritance,’ nodding to the Indian heritage of Byredo founder Ben Gorham.

The brand has a singular relationship to timing introductions.

“What’s been really nice — and this has always been the case with Byredo — is we’ve set our own type of cadence,” said Gorham. “When you have a large part of your business through direct channels, and have spent many years engaging with a number of communities, which we have, you can launch things when and how you want.

“Our process is quite long, because not only do we design products, we truly engineer them,” he continued. “That approach, that idea of obsessiveness around perfection, takes time. With the first iteration of the jewellery complete, we thought it’d be a good time to let people see it.”

Byredo has officially dabbled in fine jewellery once before. In 2020, it launched a line in collaboration with Charlotte Chesnais. Gorham said the company learns a lot through such partnerships.

“All the collaborations we have engaged in, the thesis has always been that it needs to be a win-win,” he said. “Both parties need to come away from that with an experience of learning something new or a new approach to things.

“Charlotte, who we worked with, in the beginning was instrumental in opening my mind to what can be done with metals and precious materials,” continued Gorham, adding this new jewellry launch is more personal. “It relates very much to my background, my relationship with that category and those types of products.”

Byredo is rather autobiographical.

“I’ve always, for many years, just obsessed about memory,” said Gorham. “It’s still an important component in how I create. When I thought about jewellery, it was more thinking about my relationship to it, and my memories and my cultural connection to these pieces. That was very much my mother, initially, and my grandmother, and [their being culturally] from India, [where] jewelry really is something that you pass down through generations.”

Another component added to the mix of inspirations was Gorham’s Western upbringing, in the U.S. and Canada.

“In the ’90s, my big cultural influence was hip-hop, and hip-hop still today has this incredible fascination about jewellery,” said Gorham. “I tried to make something that echoed the sentiment of culture and tradition, and at the same time pushed it into being something that was highly expressive, kind of unapologetic, and that for me represented hip-hop culture.”

Trial and error went into the engineering process for the collection.

“It took a while, but at the same time, I’m very happy with the outcome,” said Gorham. “Even seeing how just within my family, how the women in my family primarily, intuitively interact with the jewellery is very interesting. It makes me very happy that people can have an immediate emotional connection to a piece of jewelry.”

There are necklaces, bracelets, rings and earring made in Italy for this line of pieces that have a leitmotif of rounded pearl shapes interlocked with graphic bars.

“I was very interested in creating a chain, just kind of fascinated by how I could start with this idea of repetition and then maybe remove components to see if they stood by themselves,” said Gorham.

The exclusive pre-launch of Virasaat will take place on Nov. 30 in Byredo’s Paris boutique on Rue Saint-Honoré. That will be followed by the brand’s flagships beginning  on January 25.

Prices range from $350 for a silver ring to $27,000 for a gold necklace.

Courtesy: Yahoo News