Highly individual expressions of highly personal emotions, that’s how you could describe the jewellery of Marie-Bénédicte de Schryver. She expresses her femininity in her creations in a fragile, noble and sensual way. “I want women to feel subtly seductive when wearing my jewellery”. Her creations are not only artistic by design, but are wearable in daily – or not so daily – life.
Marie-Bénédicte designs rings, necklaces and earrings to embellish fingers, neck and ears. Not a single design is a cheap compromise, even if it can be reproduced. An elegant flower as earring, a fine leaf as necklace, feminine elegance plays a vital role in the creations of this reputed goldsmith and jewellery designer.
Goldsmith and jewellery designer Marie-Bénédicte de Schryver offers you a quality insurance, every jewel is almost invisibly marked with a karat stamp and her officially recognised master stamp that guarantees your jewel is a design and creation of Marie-Bénédicte herself.
Since she was little, Jo De Visscher [°1976] is bitten by the fashion bug. She starts working with scraps of fabric which she turns into full silhouettes for her Barbie dolls and gets her mother to knit matching miniature sweaters.
While growing up, she sews her first skirts on an old sewing machine without having any formal training.
She studies maths and science and, as a teenager, becomes fascinated by an article on the restoration of the frescos in the Sistine Chapel. The article has such an impact on her that she decides to enrol in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, where she studies painting and specializes in restoration of contemporary art. She graduates in ’99, learns the ropes at the S.M.A.K., MuHKA and Kunstmuseum Bonn and finally starts her own restoration company (contemporary art conservation) in Brussels.
She’s asked to collaborate on the exhibition ‘Mutilate?-Vermink?’ — curated by Walter Van Beirendonck — at the MuHKA and this project rekindles her passion for fashion. Jo follows her heart, says goodbye to restoration and hello to fashion and clothing. She does an intensive course in pattern making, learns proper sewing properly this time and studies fashion design at night school. She also freelances for the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp.
In 2007, her final year show generates such a buzz that she decides to design and market her own ‘jodevisscher’ collection.
