Shops selling jewellery by Belgian Designers
Isabelle Leloup
Isabelle LeloupMore Info
Multiculturelle, née d’une mère vietnamienne et d’un père belge, diplômée en stylisme de la Cambre (Bruxelles), Isabelle crée des collections de bijoux depuis plus de 20 ans.
Après avoir réalisé des parures pour la couture (notamment pour la maison Natan) et des bijoux fantaisie haut de gamme, Isabelle s’est aujourd’hui recentré sur l’essentiel : des matières précieuses et durables, des lignes pures inspirées de ses origines asiatiques, un style inspiré par son goût pour le chic parisien et l’intemporelle classe à l’italienne.
Les bijoux ISABELLE LELOUP sont entièrement réalisés à la main en Belgique par des artisans joailliers, et sont exclusivement en Or 18 carats recyclé et diamants de qualité supérieure (couleur : G et pureté : VS1).
Chaque pièce de bijou est unique.
Office Avenue des Constellations 18 Waterloo 1410 Belgium
Showroom Rue Lebeaustraat 31 (Sablon) Brussels 1000 Belgium
Ingrid Verhoeven
Ingrid VerhoevenMore Info
MY STORY
My work is influenced by the colors and shapes that I enjoy having around me. I like the precision and craftsmanship so many objects and art pieces – past and present – are made with. I also find pleasure in the playful and ordinary things I encounter in everyday life. This combination of playfulness and precise technique can be found in my collections.
Earlier work clearly communicates my affection for Modernism and Constructivism. And although gradually my work has become gentler and more female, still today these schools remain sources of inspiration. Both images are compilations of ‘sketches’ I made throughout the years. The picture also contains a favourite painting, in small print, of Wassily Kandinsky.
All rings, bracelets and necklaces, made in the workshop after March 2012, are marked with this graphic logo.
The jewelry is designed and produced in the private workshop in Antwerp. Some pieces, like the paper pieces, lacquered dots, rings and bracelets, take a few weeks to finish because they need time to dry and harden.
Important for me, and fun, is the research I do. Throughout the years I collected (and continue to do so) images of Art and Applied Art of favourite Artists. This study helped to build up a personal graphical style.
I do sometimes look at other (antique) jewelry, but my main sources of inspiration lay elsewhere.
The second step in the design process is sketching. Not only by making tests in metal, as shown above, but also by drawing and writing about the work
Besides working with classical materials like silver and gold, I look for other ways of bringing print and color into my jewelry. This often results in working with ‘ordinary’ office supplies, such as vintage Dymo tapes and Letratone prints, the latter were used a lot by graphic designers and architects in the Eighties. I also use ink, paint, markers and dry color pigments.
These non-common materials and various sources of inspiration, form a base for my work.
Generaal Eisenhowerlei 40 Antwerp 2140 Belgium
ICON
ICONMore Info
A WAYWARD VISION IN FASHION
ICON has been housing an international selection of upcoming to established designers for over fifteen years and stands for a personal and obstinate selection. Surprising with new designers every season, great attention is given to the unique & own identity of all in-store designers. From clothing to jewellery, shoes & bags, each piece is chosen with special care.
Place du nouveau marché aux grains 5 Nieuwe Graanmarkt 5 Brussels 1000
Isabelle Lenfant
Isabelle LenfantMore Info
IL concept
‘The most beautiful jewel a person can wear are the arms of the person she loves.
For those who have had the good fortune of finding this happiness and those who haven’t yet, I am here…’ (Isabelle Lenfant, inspired by Y.S.L.)
Transforming everyday objects into precious jewels and imprinting them with life’s sensibility so that they remain engraved in our memory: that is the approach chosen by Belgian jewellery designer Isabelle Lenfant for what she calls her Heart Jewels.
For Isabelle, jewels are highly symbolic: they can evoke a memory, a presence, a sense of protection…
They form a second skin… as well as a suit of armour between the body and the world, shielding it from the inevitable ups and downs that are part of a life lived to the fullest.
As Jeanne Moreau once said: ‘I don’t have much of a memory… but I do have souvenirs’. Jewels are that souvenir…
This jewel tells a story… Isabelle’s dream is that the people who wear her designs will appropriate them and imbue them with their own history, their own symbolism – their life, quite simply – and that they will thus wear… la vie en rose.
Isabelle Lenfant’s initials – ‘IL’ – blend both femininity and masculinity.
The collection ‘IL by Isabelle Lenfant’ reimagines everyday objects, such as a Band-Aid wrapped around a finger or applied on a neck or wrist. A silver or gold diamond, in whose split genuine jewels are inserted…
The branches of a tree to remind us that we are the only solid foundation of our lives…
As Juliette Binoche once said: ‘To dream, you must have your feet on the ground. The deeper the roots, the stronger the branches’.
The pieces in the collection are in 925 silver and in 18-carat gold. Some pieces are set with precious stones such as diamonds or rubies and have been designed in the finest tradition of jewellery design.
An important part of Isabelle’s research focuses on individuality, on the adaptable nature of her designs. The chains can thus be worn in different ways, and those who wear them are thus in a sense continuing her designs. The chains are ornamented with unusual symbols: a set of keys to unlock all possibilities, envelopes that are open to receive a secret, a love letter, a plug and socket to disconnect, smashed watches and their mechanisms to arrest time and live in the present…
The pieces in the collection ‘IL by Isabelle Lenfant’ are a presence one forgets, an ‘otherwise’. They carry us into a world lit up by the beauty of experience, of not-forgetting and of individuality. A world where life is punctuated by three ellipsis points and not a full stop. A world where adaptable jewels offer a blank page to those who wear them and imprint them with their own story, their own secrets, their own symbolism and thus turn the given piece into something unique, in their own image.
Know-how
« IL by Isabelle Lenfant » ART jewels are designed hand-crafted, in the pure jewellery tradition. Made in Belgium and in France.
“IL’s” creations exist in hand-polished sterling silver (925/1000) or charcoal grey oxidized.
Silver is a living matter that individualizes each creation. In time …life tarnishes and oxidizes it….This matter itself symbolizes the concept of uniqueness that is developed thereafter in Isabelle Lenfant’s creations… it consolidates and embraces it.
As “Il by Isabelle Lenfant”’s creations are neither silver plated again nor rhodium… they oxidise in the course of time … If you want them to remain as they are just clean them with a soft cloth or use a product for silver.
Though cut to the quick as if life had already brushed them… the chains are joined together by links soldered by hand.
Lockets are also hand-cut and each of the keys is chipped in a different way … that makes them unique.
Polishing makes it a mirror… reflecting shades and lights…
A large part of Isabelle Lenfant’s search focuses on individuality, on the adjustable side of her creations. Chains can be worn in various ways, in different lengths … what allows the one wearing the jewel to make it his/her own.
The Collection extends to 18 carat gold items, black, white…but mainly pink ones to wear life in another way.
Gold is a matter that time can’t deteriorate. That way it symbolizes the sparkle kept in our eyes despite our own life’s chaos…
Today “Il by Isabelle Lenfant” ‘s creations are set with precious stones, according to the stones symbolic and colours, inside the ring allowing the skin to be in contact with the stone and its qualities
Own desires and secrets could also be engraved…
Custom-made jewels to transform the proposed item into one unique piece reflecting the one who will adopt it….
29 rue vilain XIV Brussels 1000 Belgium