EX MACHINA

Established jewellery maisons continue to introduce technical breakthroughs in their collections while finding middle ground with age-old practices.

-  MINDY TEH

It's a brave new world for established jewellery houses with the latest techniques and innovations being incorporated into designs once impossible to realise. While other design-oriented industries fell in with futuristic applications such as augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) pretty quickly, the initial reticence from the high jewellery world is understandable. After all, the value of a parure lies not just in the precious gems embedded in a stunning piece but also in the brilliant handcrafted savoir faire that each house has come to be known for.

Yet, the sophistication and artistry of any high jewellery piece is itself a showcase of technological ingenuity. Something as innocuous as the making of a clasp, the smoothness of a precious metal, the cutting of a gem, the remarkability of a transformable piece and the structure of a necklace all bear the hallmarks of excellent, even radical, engineering and construction - sometimes by hand, sometimes not.

"Strictly speaking, nobody cuts stones just by hand," says acclaimed master gem cutter, Victor Tuzlukov in an interview with Prestige Singapore. "All cutters use some device, more or less complicated or precise. Even using a simple stick with glue requires at least a base with a motor and rotating disc, and is considered a simple faceting machine.

"On the other hand, even a machine as precise and multi-functional as Ultratec [more on this later] is not automatic, and used only to fix stones properly and set precise angles for faceting. In this sense, 1 also cut manually and am just using a more convenient and precise device for it - more precise than, say, just a wooden stick!"