Ontwerpen voor een halsketting met hanger 1874 - 1932

This is Mathieu Lauweriks' design for a necklace with a pendant. It was made using pencil and paper. Look at these circles within circles, and a central emblem: it’s like a galaxy of decoration, expanding outwards. Lauweriks wants to find out how to compress the whole universe into a single jewel. You can sense his excitement, working out how the pendant will hang, how the light will catch the facets, how it will sit against skin. Here is an architect dreaming of ornament. I bet Lauweriks was also looking at the designs of his contemporaries. The movement of drawing is like thought; the hand moving across the page, translating an idea into a form. Each decision is made and unmade in a conversation of marks. I think about what it means to design something that will be worn on the body. It’s a kind of intimacy, and yet it’s also a statement to the world, the constant dialogue of decoration.