The 2017 Paris Biennale artwork honest was the primary time the eponymous jeweller Alisa Moussaieff noticed the work of Anna Hu, a fellow exhibitor nearly 5 a long time her junior. It was an occasion that Moussaieff will always remember.

“Not solely did Anna have a pleasant present, she managed to draw the press,” Moussaieff remembers. “There was a Chinese language delegation that we tried to get — she bought them, and we didn’t. I very a lot do not forget that.”

The next 12 months, Moussaieff, who is predicated in London, invited Hu to her Bond Road boutique for a gathering. Hu remembers feeling intimidated, regardless of being the Taiwan-born daughter of a gem supplier and rising up surrounded by beautiful stones, then chopping her enamel at Christie’s, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Harry Winston earlier than beginning her personal model in New York, aged 30.

Moussaieff’s status preceded her, nevertheless. The home is synonymous within the business with a listing of exceptionally giant, jaw-dropping stones, and is rooted in an illustrious gem-trading historical past that dates again to the twelfth century Mongolian ruler Genghis Khan — who seemingly was a shopper.

However the admiration was mutual. Moussaieff instantly requested what they may do collectively. “This was actually earlier than I sat down,” remembers Hu, who lately moved to Monaco and divides her time between there and the US. “She bought proper to the purpose a few co-operation idea.”

The outcomes, in 2021, had been eight co-created jewels, which spotlight the symbiosis — each artistic and industrial — between these two impartial jewellers.

Headlining the items is what Moussaieff calls the “star piece — Anna’s star thought”: an impressive titanium Metamorphosis bracelet set with a harmonious smorgasbord of colored stones — brown, yellow-brown, and yellow-orange diamonds; mandarin, orange, and demantoid garnets, Paraiba tourmalines and sapphires, amongst them. The piece takes inspiration from Mozart’s 12 Variations on “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman” (music is a recurring theme for Hu, a cellist). The butterfly motif bracelet is topped with Moussaieff’s distinctive 35.4ct marquise brown diamond, alongside a pair of old-cut, trapezoid diamonds, every greater than 5 carats, set on the butterfly’s wing. Hu first noticed the 2 stones set in a hoop and requested Moussaieff in the event that they may very well be damaged up and remounted into her design.

Moussaieff didn’t hesitate. “No one else can do this as a result of everyone else has a board of administrators above them,” she says, including that she discovered the thought “financially fairly intelligent”, too. “The ring would have offered for ‘X’ quantity and now, on this mixture, the entire piece shall be offered for extra. So it’s not a sacrifice.”

One other standout piece is the architectural Sky Tower necklace for which Hu took inspiration from Tower Verre, a 320m-tall skyscraper adjoining to New York Metropolis’s Museum of Fashionable Artwork. Crafted via geometric slices of titanium and that includes an intricate, basic Chinese language motif on the underside, the design speaks to Anna’s signature merging of east and west touchpoints. In the meantime, a whopping 102.18ct brown-yellow diamond centre stone is Moussaieff’s hallmark. Had they been designing independently, says Moussaieff, Hu would have used a semi-precious centre stone, whereas Moussaieff’s jewel would have been notably heavier.

“Historically, a 100-carat stone would demand an necessary variety of stones round it — and would get it,” says Moussaieff. “However, right here, Anna used small diamonds and titanium.”

Design collaborations are commonplace between skills in vogue and even watches, however uncommon between jewellers. Though Hu factors to a “duet chemistry” with Moussaieff — fuelled by a mutual appreciation of their particular person, family-run companies — the latter’s prized gem stock is essential to this union.

“This partnership displays the approaching collectively of two high-end gamers with a give attention to giant, extremely prized gem stones, concentrating on rich patrons,” says Tobias Kormind, managing director of the net jeweller 77 Diamonds. Essential stones, he provides, are more and more seen as a retailer of wealth in tumultuous occasions, as “the inventory markets have gyrated massively: via the monetary disaster in 2008, throughout Covid, and now with the battle in Ukraine and all of the macroeconomic points this has precipitated”. Top quality gem stones historically carry out nicely in an inflationary setting, he notes, with costs for a few of the highest high quality diamonds rising by greater than a 3rd up to now 12 months, and nearly 60 per cent in 5 years.

The eight co-created items are priced upwards of seven figures every and just some have offered. Extra are being added, says Moussaieff, who doesn’t appear overly involved about gross sales in the mean time — and hints at working with different designers sooner or later.

With Hong Kong scrapping its quarantine guidelines final month, and extra rich shoppers beginning to journey once more, she is optimistic about unconventional, design-led jewels — just like the Sky Tower — discovering a purchaser. Plus, she provides: “If it doesn’t promote after one 12 months, I take out the diamond and put it in certainly one of our conventional mountings. However I [would] prefer to have this offered as a result of I consider in [Anna’s] mounting.”

Maybe Moussaieff sees one thing of her youthful self in Hu — her ardour and initiative as each a artistic and enterprise proprietor. “She’s fast, she’s vivacious, and a pleasure to work with,” says Moussaieff, who admires Hu’s current travels to the US to satisfy Chinese language shoppers, who more and more reside overseas. “She does issues earlier than we even take into consideration them. That is known as a nice benefit.”

In the meantime, the 90-something Moussaieff is extra like a mentor to Hu, who says the 2 communicate almost day-after-day. Matters vary from stone color tendencies, to the gem market — corresponding to this week’s momentous Sotheby’s sale of the 11.15ct Williamson Pink Star, one of many world’s pinkest and purest diamonds to return to market — and to chatting about their youngsters.

“For me, it’s actually to be taught from somebody who’s so intelligent, so good, so sharp and cut-throat,” says Hu. “I take that as essentially the most priceless lesson. I actually cherish each single second that she spends time with me as a result of I do know it’s historic. This gained’t be repeated.”