Gen Z Does Dada With New Brand D’heygere
Object Lessons In Accessorizing
(and then design jewelry to carry them).
Belgian-born Paris-based designer, Stephanie D’heygere—whose fashion pedigree includes Maison Margiela, Dior, jewelry for Y/Project—is creating handsome objects that honor (altar-like) the everyday. In her world, utility is never sacrificed for aesthetics, and form wonderfully collides with—even winks at—function. The result is luxury that feels unexpected. Items that might animate the wearer, and rationalize what is customarily called a “conversation piece.” Items that play with Lewis Carroll ratios; that could have been spotted at one of Dalí’s famous dinner parties.
Because D’heygere’s eponymous label—launched last year during Paris Fashion Week—combines elements of surrealism and romance with correspondence and quirk. Her designs are participants, made for the modern day magpie. Earrings double as flower canisters or cigarette holders, or a place to store a paper scroll: like a love letter, a to-do list, your dry-cleaning receipt, why not. A belt isn’t just a belt. It includes a trompe-l’oeil extra for those days when wearing jeans and a white tee might feel stale. (The belt comes with a pocket, encouraging you to leave your home hands-free.) A lanyard lipstick holder is a necklace, or vice versa, and a charm necklace doubles as a mirror pouch (to check your lipstick midday). A pen is a keychain, is a classic Bic 4 Color, is a gift. It comes in a box.
D’heygere accessories are tailored to (and wise to) a generation whose compulsion to document means any purchase obliges an Instagram post; means designing objects that accommodate this urge and build upon it. The bucket hat is recast as a purse. The ring box is an earring. The fanny pack comes with a top handle. Everything is but still personal, ever-thoughtful. Everything is abstract or conversely, reduced to its most atomic need, or something else entirely: the absurd. -jewelry. Dual-purpose. Marie Kondo meets Marcel Duchamp.
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