Jeweled Pieces — in Sophie Bille Brahe‘s creations, traditional craft meets new interpretation.
By Mona Bergers
For Sophie Bille Brahe, everything has always come back to time. She traces it to a childhood memory: her mother once lost a Cartier watch on the shore at Hornbæk, north of Copenhagen, and her father searched through the night until he found it. “In that moment,” she recalls, “I understood what a piece of jewellery can mean to someone.” It’s a story that still anchors her philosophy today — that jewellery should endure, passed down rather than worn out. That belief first led her to diamonds, which she describes as having a near-hypnotic pull, “like stars,” and later to freshwater pearls, which she likens to the moon.
Her latest departure has been into glass. Bille Brahe has extended her fine jewellery universe into a line of vases, working with traditional Murano glassblowers to carry over the geometries that define her jewellery — including her signature spiral “Escargot” form — into a new material. She describes glass as historically “as precious as a diamond,” sharing the same clarity and purity, though far less forgiving to work with: there are only seconds to shape it before it cools.
Her third Murano collection draws on a specific memory of Venice — a summer evening, a Bellini in the Calle Vallaresso, streetlamps casting gold light across the city. As she puts it, Venice carries “a romantic shimmer” that she’s tried to capture in glass.
The new vases are currently on view alongside her jewellery at her showroom in New York.
“Jewellery should endure — passed down, never worn out.”
Photo Credits — Showroom: Victoria Hely-Hutchinson. Vases: Casper Sejersen. Jewellery: Matthieu Lavanchy.