La Maison

Sandrine Barabinot. Geneva.

She makes jewellery by subtraction. After three decades inside luxury and fashion, she left to build a smaller house — one that works in form rather than ornament, and keeps its voice low.

Its language is sculpture: the sphere of the Bubble, the line of the Torque — volumes meant to be held as much as worn. Its signature is grand feu enamel, hand-painted and kiln-fired, one piece at a time. The technique resists the machine and keeps the trace of the hand, so that no two pieces are alike.

Nothing is made in series. Each piece is made to order in Geneva, finished to endure, and meant to gather a patina with the life of the woman who wears it.

This is a quieter idea of luxury — the kind that does not raise its voice. It is for the woman who no longer needs to be seen, and chooses instead to be understood.

Sandrine Barabinot — Geneva

Sandrine Barabinot, founder of the Maison, wearing three Bubble Circle rings in 18k gold and grand feu enamel

The Founder

For twenty years, Sandrine Barabinot made lucky charms. Fashion accessories, and she called them that.

Then five years without producing anything. She kept drawing, every day.

She came back to fine jewellery with plain, decided forms. A twenty-millimetre sphere on the finger, a rigid collar at the neck. Pieces you notice without identifying — no logo, no motif you could name from across a room.

Her colours come from her travels. A sand, a night sky, a green she saw somewhere and never forgot. It isn't the shade she is after, it's what she felt at that moment.

The Bubble is a sphere. A halo. The aura — what each of us gives off and cannot see.

At Sandrine Barabinot, precious is never well-behaved.

Bubble Circle I rings worn together on the hand — 18k gold sphere rings with aubergine, green and grey grand feu enamel and pavé diamonds, by Sandrine Barabinot

The Hand

The enamel is hand-painted and fired at eight hundred degrees, one piece at a time. It swells, it settles, it goes back to the kiln.

The kiln decides what the hand proposed. Two pieces of the same colour never hold the same depth. Elsewhere they would be discarded. Here they are signed.