Italian jewelry designer Delfina Delettrez is about to re-shock the dilettante audience by assembling her unconventional jewelry designs in the first retrospective from her coinage of the last five years. Galleria Antonella Villanov in Florence is offering the room for the arty unfolding, of which “Love is the Hair” is a significant part.
Have you ever been in love? Or agonized by heartbreak? At first glance these piccaninny “doodads” are giving an excruciating heart-smothering sensation, gushing forth those offensive feelings which are coming along with heartache. Although Delfina had something else in her mind at the time she started creating her precious little art sculptures. The arrow stabbing hearts or spooky round-eyed details of the jewelry line could scare you away, the naming though as “Friendship collar” or “To bee or not to be long chain” gives a whole lot friendlier connotation to it.
Just back in the days the surreal artist Joan Miro was able to tone artwork and title in such a lyrical manner. Delfina has found her way easily to surrealism by pushing the envelope between the world of subconscious and terrestrial rarities. As the main title reveals, the bottom line of the collection is the hair, and the power which resides in it. “I wanted to return to the origin of jewels,” said the designer. “And I have always been obsessed with hair — especially men’s, when the larger the hair, the greater the power.”
Delettrez powerful tress is trapped in resin heart-shaped pendant adopting the concept of the Victorian mourning jewelry that often encased locks of loved ones into brooches and lockets.
Among Ms. Delfinas’ repertoire a hoard of rings, necklaces and earrings all “buzzing” from bees, flies and bumblebees is enlisted. ”To bee or not to be a honeycomb” is a tenuously shaped gold plated bracelet enchanted with tiny golden bees, however the macabre feel is returning at full blast with the “Love me love me not” repertory, where the fly is the main adornment of the accessory, to crown it all, these icky repulsive bugs are fed with 9 karat golden flowers.
Delfina Delettrez is boxing the compass with her trademark enameled eyes and rouged lips pattern, doubling back to that particular eerie atmosphere which marks Delfina's world. When she assembled the composition of ”Face ring” she must have thought of the two masters of the macabre, matching up Hitchcock’s Spellbound eyes and the Mae West Lips Sofa from Dali. We can breathe again, the pierced heart earrings gently coasted in gold and silver compensate the preponderate eeriness of the collection of “Love is the Hair”. Playful and ethereal, the floating mellow eyes and lips adorned with pearls brings on a relief to the beholder.
In addition, the artist takes inspiration from human body, creating wearable DNA helixes around your neck and wrists, although geology is a predominant subject over here, as you might need to define the rocks of peridot, amethyst, and citrine which these strands are studded with.
Each piece of the Delfina Delettrez's "Love is the Hair'" jewelry collection emits some of our hidden human manifestations; despair in love, childishness or intelligent irony, all alluding to the hectic mind of the 21st century woman. The Fendi heiress has created her own “Delfinarium” inviting all and sundry to her first monographic exhibition at the contemporary art jewelry gallery Antonella Villanova within the pale of Palazzo Ricasoli until September the 10th 2012. Entering the designers’ self created “Delfinarium” James Darren song revives in you: “Goodbye cruel world I am off to join the circus”.
