Precious ice tongs and burnished bowls: what happens when a jeweller makes homeware - The Times

Challenge yourself with today's puzzles.

It was while the jeweller Jessica McCormack was on holiday with friends in Ibiza that she realised something was missing. “We were drinking rosé and we’d asked for some ice,” she says, while sitting in her Mayfair HQ. “I was scooping the cubes into my wine glass and thought how nice it would be to have a proper pair of tongs.” Now, two years on, McCormack is launching a whole collection of luxury objects — including those tongs — with homeware brand L’Objet.

Artists the Haas Brothers can be thanked (in part) for the collaboration. Elad Yifrach, L’Objet’s founder and creative director, explains: “We met for the first time through the brothers — Jess had collaborated with them on a collection of jewellery, boxes and sculpture and we’d worked with them too” on a collection that included a chess set and incense burner. The shared association put McCormack and Yifrach on each other’s radars, and soon after their own collaboration was in the works.

First ideas were scribbled on the back of a napkin by McCormack. “I gave Elad a drawing for some salad servers; I thought they’d be good for gifting for my clients, but he insisted we did a proper collection.” And it’s clear that Yifrach is a fan. “I love what she does. Everything is with so much ease and nonchalance — she can sell you a million-pound diamond but she does it wearing jeans and a T-shirt. And I love the universe she’s created around her brand,” he adds.

“Interiors, art and objects have always been part of my DNA,” confirms McCormack (the layered decor in her stores is testament to that), “so homeware fits easily within that.”

The collection comprises 26 pieces — including cutlery (from £125), a caviar dish (£405), a vanity mirror (£565), ice bucket and tongs (£445), and scented candles (£160). As one would expect, jewellery references abound, specifically from McCormack’s marine-themed Beaches collection with its signature twisted rope found wrapped around a serving platter, cutlery handles and napkin rings. Sculptural bowls take the form of conch shells.

“I wanted it to be precious and the best materials,” Yifrach says. “The neutral palette is very much like jewellery,” he adds, “with gold, silver and white porcelain.”

“We used mixed metals with the stainless steel and gold,” adds McCormack, “which is something I already do a lot [with white and yellow gold].”

Yifrach called on his long-established relationships nurtured over 20 years with craft studios in India, Portugal and France to create each piece. “All the porcelain pieces are made in Portugal and then coated in three layers of gold which we polish with agate powder to kill the very shiny surface and give it a beautiful semi-matt finish.”

For the pieces made in stainless steel, including the cutlery, he turned to a silversmith in India, just outside Delhi. “It’s one of the oldest silversmith families and they’re used to only working with sterling silver. I asked them to work with stainless steel for the first time, but to make it look like silver by using only the highest grade and polishing it in a specific way — the resulting tone is really beautiful. Everything we make is a mix of design and incredible craftsmanship, all shaped and finished by hand.”

The conch shell dish (from £430) that gleams like gold (in fact it’s highly polished brass) is Yifrach’s favourite — “it’s heavy and monumental, perfect for your coffee table or desk, so when you pick it up it feels like sculpture”.

For McCormack, it’s the Shell Scoop bowls (from £180). “I love them; I can see them full of ice cream, candy or French fries. I’d like the whole set of cutlery for my beach house — it’s casual and fun.”

Both hope this might be the start of something more, with additional offerings inspired by McCormack’s jewellery. “It would be great to keep developing it,” she says. “Not everything has to be diamonds to be beautiful to look at.”

The new collection launches on September 17. Prices from £125; l-objet.com and jessicamccormack.com

Comments are subject to our community guidelines, which can be viewed here.