Dear Shaded viewers,
Lucas Bauer has launched his first full collection of enchanting jewelry designs, each piece a reminder of our connections with nature and our transient role within it. HYPHOS is an expansive collection, featuring pieces carefully crafted to intertwine seamlessly around the body, echoing the organic beauty of the world around us.
An encounter with a parrotfish while diving inspired Bauer to shift paths from Jewelry and Accessory Design at Louis Vuitton to creating his own brand, one that harnesses the beauty of the natural world. He began with custom orders, refining his artistry for this inaugural collection. The organic shapes of HYPHOS – encompassing everything from chain and choker necklaces, bracelets, earrings and ear cuffs, rings, and face jewelry – were designed to honor microspecies that existed long before us and will for long after. Each design is molded to the body, representing the seamless existence of microspecies around us, unnoticed yet fundamental to our world.
While this was the source of Lucas’ inspiration, he is delighted that the pieces can evoke different meanings – fire, water, algae, vines, veins – to each wearer depending on their deeply personal connection with nature. In this way, the collection encompasses the primal origins of life on our planet and reflects the history and future to which we are all bound.
Within HYTHOS, there are three lines – Icons, Precious, and Metamorphs. Pieces can all be worn separately, together, and alongside preexisting jewelry collections. While bold, like a protective outer layer, the designs remain delicate, sitting around the body’s natural bends and curves with the gentleness of an embrace. Cuffs or rings that crawl up the finger-like living creatures interlace and seem to fuse with the body, allowing freedom of movement. The collection is designed for a wide range of ages, with more youthful inspirations like earring stacks and lip jewelry, to more classically elegant pendants and rings.
The materials selected for HYPHOS have existed long before and will continue to exist long after us. Gold, silver, vermeil, precious and semi-precious gemstones like diamonds, sapphires, tourmaline, aquamarine, and citrine are resilient and timelessness. Individually they present remarkable strength, and together they intertwine and harmonize with modern grace.
To launch the collection, Bauer collaborated with photographers Estéves + Belloso and model Heather Kemesky to create campaign images that capture the organic essence of the collection. Raw, unedited skin, with all its unique characteristics, glows in the embrace of Bauer’s jewelry. Amongst other HYPHOS pieces, the trio of bracelets – Liana, Budweed, and Twirl – are worn together, stacked in a symbiosis, while the Sporo lip jewelry sits delicately on the silhouette of the mouth like a dewdrop. The campaign integrated images of Bauer’s personal collection of shells, plants, roots, and thorns, which inspired the jewelry itself, speaking to the circularity of the natural world.
HYPHOS is available for order on Lucas Bauer’s website.
Later,
Eliya
