Luxury that lives

Jewellery designer, Patcharavipa Bodiratnangkura, the youngest granddaughter of Thanphuying Lersak Sombatsiri, owner of Swissotel Nai Lert Park Bangkok, is hosting a private exhibition and sale of the three pieces in her “Above the Clouds” collection made by leading Swiss jewellers, Adler.

More than 200 pieces of Adler’s refined and elegant jewellery will be on display at the Nai Lert Park Heritage Home in Bangkok from today until Thursday.

Patcharavipa is currently working on her jewellery design degree at the Central Saint Martins, University in London. She started her own brand called All that Glitters when she was just 14, becoming the youngest designer ever selected to participate in the 2005 and 2006 editions of Bangkok Fashion Week. Last year saw Patcharavipa successfully bringing a showcase of jewellery from Michel Ermelin’s Maison Verney from Paris to Bangkok. 

She says her latest collection is inspired by what might be up there above the clouds, “maybe Adam and Eve, nature, animals – a flamingo”. The pieces include a necklace, earrings and a ring.

This is the first year Adler is exhibiting in Bangkok. Franklin and Allen Adler, fourth generation members of the founding family, jetted in for the show, along with Allen’s Daisy Hui.

Franklin was happy to talk about the brand’s passion for jewels, saying that since its creation 125 years ago, the company has controlled every stage of the creative process, from choosing and buying the finest stones to polishing and design and customising sales in its exclusive boutiques.

“Our principle of working is excellence. We aim to achieve the best design, the best stones, and the best workmanship,” he says. “We like classic design but with a little twist. If you create something too modern, within a short period of time, it is out of fashion. If you design classic with a twist, it remains timeless. We want our jewellery to be handed down through the generations, to be given by mothers to their daughters and still be very beautiful.”

Apart from originality in design, what make the brand highly distinctive is that it’s easy to wear. “When women wear jewellery, it moves and it attracts the light, making it and them even more attractive. I love to see my jewellery worn a lot and not become museum pieces because that is how it lives. If you don’t wear it, it doesn’t live,” he says.

“Jewellery creation is art,” he continues. There are many curves and sober lines in our designs. The height is up and down like the mountains. It has this look that is alive. Otherwise, jewellery is flat without dimension.”

A fine example is Sail, a pair of earrings in titanium set with pink sapphires and diamonds that twist and spin like a seashell.

Equally dazzling is a necklace set in vivid yellow and brown diamonds. Natural colour diamonds are rare, Franklin says, occurring in only about two per cent of diamonds, but very fashionable these days.

Also on display is jewellery that combines new materials. After integrating titanium, wood and silk with its jewels, Adler’s designers have taken up the challenge of carbon, a material that is hard and difficult to fashion but opens up to new possibilities. The jewellery made of carbon is extremely light and fascinates with their diverse textures and colours. A necklace in carbon and white gold set with diamonds is both fascinating and unique.

“We want our jewellery pieces to be creative and to inspire,” he says.