Why Pearls Go Skin Deep For Cora Sheibani

Forbes

9 hours ago

Ice Cream pearl rings by Cora Sheibani
With vivd strings of precious beads and meticulously carved gemstones, Cora Sheibani has aways been inspired by the permanence of metals and minerals. But for her latest collection, unveiled last night at a private dinner in London, she chose another gem: the Skin Deep collection celebrates lustrous, fragile pearls, each one as individual as our own skin. In choosing to work with pearls for the first time in her two-decade career as a jewelry designer, she is creating a metaphor for vulnerability, beauty and the transformative nature of the human condition.
'I finally fell in love with pearls,' she explains, 'I like them for who they are. With their beautiful luster, they don't necessarily last forever, but despite their especially fragile sheen, I couldn't help being attracted to them and decided it was time for me to embark on a new collection.' From prized Akoya pearls to the often overlooked cultured pearl, via Tahitian and Edison varieties, many different kinds have found their way into the collection, in a gentle palette ranging from warm peach to creamy white via an especially vibrant violet.
The Renaissance pearl earrings by Cora Sheibani
In the Renaissance earrings, the quiet glow of soft gray pearls is accentuated against lavender gems, while the Ice Cream rings, deliciously styled as a double cornet with sorbet-colored pearl scoops, show the chromatic breadth of the gem of the oceans. The sheen itself is all-important; as the layers of nacre become a metaphor for superficial judgement of beauty when in fact, pearls tell a much deeper story, shaped by life during the growing process, just like human skin. For Sheibani, the collection is about embracing authenticity of both materials and attitude.
For Skin Deep, she has revisited some of the forms and combinations of her existing collections. Models from Facets & Forms (2024) see pearls paired with geometric cuts, creating a tension between rounded natural forms, and the points of faceted stones. Elsewhere, those gold ice cream cones were initially part of the Copper Moulds collection, initially launched in 2008, but like all of Sheibani's work, no two pieces are alike. This means that each of her thematic collections continue to evolve and develop like living entities of their own, as she is inspired to create different color combinations.
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Cora Sheibani at home in London, wearing a necklace from the Colour & Contradictions collection and ... More the Cactus Leaf bracelet
"I design jewellery because I like to wear it. I look at my jewellery collection and think about what I'm missing, which is what inspires me as to what to design next,' she explains. 'Even if I make the same design again, it will be in a different color-way, or there will be a variation, because I think that real luxury is being able to have something unique. It's not something that you can buy everywhere.'
For much of the past two decades, color has been a guiding light. Once she has the theme and foundation forms of her collection, work turns very swiftly to the color pairings of different stones and metals. When we meet in Paris, she explains that she finds color energizing, and it's impossible not to feel the same in front of her rainbow-hued jewelry. Hers is a bewitching world in which nephrite jade cacti rings vie for space with anodized aluminum pot plant earrings, and punchy lozenges of blue chalcedony and faceted smoky quartz
The Ice Cream ring, white gold and pearls.
Often unusual and always original, the combinations are intuitive, rooted in an innate sense of style that owes much to her family background in the art world. Her father, Bruno Bischofberger, a Swiss art dealer, met her American mother, Christina Clifton in Zurich, and she was schooled in art history over the breakfast table. Her childhood bedroom contained furniture from her parents' Memphis group collection and family holidays might include Jean-Michel Basquiat, with whom she collaborated on a painting as a small child, in 1984. A year later her father hosted an Andy Warhol exhibition hung at child-height, to suit Cora and her brother, Magnus.
'I grew up with art history, so I my approach design is that revisiting existing ideas and themes is not out of bounds,' she says, of how her family background has shaped her creative practice. 'Actually, I don't think there's anything out of bounds. I love things that are conceptually or intellectually interesting, but if the design itself is not beautiful, then there's no point.' A visual learner, once her education was formalized with an art history degree, she gravitated towards jewelry as a channel for her creativity.
Pearl and gemstone earring by Cora Sheibani
One of her first jewelry purchases was an antique bronze ring in her teens, which she wore daily until it broke. She saved up and duly found two Greek and Roman replacements, which she wore with African bead bracelets in a characteristically bold approach to pairing and contrast. This would later resurface most strongly in the Colour & Contradiction collection, which featured polished — and often highly unusual — stones with faceted gold, an irreverent take on the more usual treatments. "I think back to the times I went to gem fairs when I was younger and not all doors were open to me. Now this is my world,' she reflects on her career.
Her collections start life in her sketchbooks and eschewing wholesale-scale production in Asia, most pieces are made by her goldsmith, Sebastian Fässler, in Switzerland, apart from earrings which are developed with 'a female goldsmith, who wears earrings herself. It's much easier to work with her because she can wear them for the day and understand the subtlety of what's important and what works. Even though a lot of other Swiss and European companies have started producing in Asia, I'm holding onto production in Europe, using European craftspeople,' she continues. 'Some of my colored gemstones are cut in Bangkok and my custom-cut diamonds are cut in Israel, because that's where the expertise is,' she explains, but an overall focus on European craftsmanship is a refreshing perspective, as traditional jewelry craft is increasingly threatened by technology.
Cora Sheibani wearing pearl necklaces from the Skin Deep collection
Throughout her career to date, Sheibani's journey has been marked by a determination to go her own way and control her own design narrative. Her work is visually tied to her own style and image; she has always modeled her own jewelry for look books and marketing, her daughter now steps in alongside her mother, but the overall Sheibani aesthetic is very much based on an instinct for design nourished by formative years steeped in a rich artistic culture. "When your kids grow up, you want them to be proud of what you've achieved,' she says during our conversation, and I have no doubt that this applies to her own children who are growing up watching their mother model authenticity and individuality, much like her beloved pearls.