Cris Porto began with an image: liquid light reflecting neon-blue nuances across a crystalline surface. From that vision came the Neon Necklace, a high-jewellery necklace centred on a pair of unusually intense Paraíba tourmalines.
An image before the stone
High jewellery often begins with a stone. For this necklace, Brazilian designer Cris Porto describes the reverse: everything began with an image, that of liquid light, in neon-blue nuances, moving across a crystalline surface. From this poetic vision came a spectacular composition in which light seems to turn into precious material.
The name of the necklace, Neon Necklace, therefore takes on a precise meaning. It does not refer to an urban-night aesthetic, but to the colour of a rare, cool glow that jewellery attempts to fix in metal and stones.
Two tourmalines, an architecture of diamonds
At the centre of the necklace, two oval Paraíba tourmalines with a total weight of 7.2 carats draw attention through an electric colour of unusual intensity. Their vibrant shade boldly breaks the harmony of the diamonds and gives the necklace contrast and vitality.
Around these stones unfolds a precious architecture of diamonds, conceived as a flow. Pear-cut and princess-cut diamonds form a delicate cascade, while brilliant-cut diamonds underline the composition with a pure gleam.
The necklace is made in 18-carat white gold. It is set with 319 diamonds totalling 23.11 carats, together with a 1.20-carat pear-cut diamond that punctuates the cascade like a luminous drop of water. The initial image finds its endpoint here: the drop that completes the flow.
A jewel that changes silhouette
True to Cris Porto’s creative approach, the piece offers several ways of wearing it. An extender makes it possible to adjust the necklace’s length. Above all, the diamond cascade, ending in the pear-cut diamond, can be removed, subtly transforming the jewel’s silhouette.
This modularity responds to a question raised by every piece of this scale: how can such a spectacular necklace exist beyond the evening for which it was imagined? Here, the answer lies in a simple gesture: remove the cascade, and the whole shifts register, less flowing and more centred on the two tourmalines.
The contrast between the sobriety of white, that of gold and diamonds, and the electric colour of the central stones does all the work. Nothing softens the Paraíba; it is left alone, in full light, within a setting that recedes around it.
This choice also explains the importance of the number. Three hundred and nineteen diamonds, totalling 23.11 carats, are not there to compete with the tourmalines but to bring them out: the quantity of white stones serves as silence around the colour. In a necklace of this size, restraint lies less in simplicity than in the precision with which each stone finds its place in the cascade.
Chromatic boldness
With the Neon Necklace, Cris Porto orchestrates the meeting of the diamond’s absolute brilliance and the chromatic boldness of Paraíba tourmaline. The press release closes with a formula that can be adopted as one’s own: as if, for an instant, nature itself had decided to paint light.
The Neon Necklace thus belongs to a logic the designer upholds: an exceptional jewel is not a fixed piece, but an object whose wearer can alter its presence. The necklace can become a radiant cascade or a more compact pendant, and it is this freedom of choice, as much as the 7.2 carats of tourmaline, that makes it a living jewel.
It remains to be seen what becomes of light once it has been set. Jewellery has that singular determination to stop what, by definition, moves, and to make it wearable.
Cette publication est également disponible en :
