​Necklaces

Necklace in gold and black silver

Gold ring with tahiti pearl, here as a necklace

Black silver

Part of necklace in red gold and white pearls

Part of necklace in red gold and white pearls

Ring and pendant in silver and gold

Ring and pendant in black silver.

Pearl pendant, red gold, black pearl and silver chain.

Ring and pendant in gold with diamonds

Forged necklace in red gold with chrysopras pearls

Forged necklace in silver

Forged necklace in gold.

Ring and pendant in gold with diamonds

The necklaces you’ll see here are all seen through Dorte Krogh’s lens. She has been my photographer of choice since 2000. In the necklace River I’ve used a new technique to join the links together. The basic idea is that the stones must always face the viewer, which is why the links can’t be joined in the usual fashion. Each link must face the right way. The technique makes the links meander when you move, thus reminding you of a flowing river.

How long can a necklace be? This one is quite long, almost reaches the waist, where the link that happens to be the lowest that day makes a pointed shape.

What do you see first, when wearing "Kernel with a Sway" ? Maybe you notice that the necklace doesn’t sit the way necklaces usually do – that it doesn’t quite adhere to the laws of gravity? Each link is made of a thick black silver thread and a thinner gold thread, which leads to the optical illusion, where the eye is drawn towards the darker, thicker thread. “Is it right?” you might wonder while trying to turn one of the joints to bring back the order. But then another link will turn to restore the disarray. Which is exactly the charm of this necklace. It will appeal to some and repel others. The necklace has two locks, so that the necklace can be worn long in the winter and short in the summer.

The people who’ve known my work since the Eighties all think these new necklaces look a lot like the Fish necklaces from back then. But I think they lean more towards the Amphora jewellery, which originated in 2004.

The idea of making sequences came to me in 1999. For me the millennium was magic, something that made me think a lot about “time”. The chain is very symbolic; time passes no matter what we do. In that same period I made a number of sequenced necklaces, and here on kloeve.dk you can see another piece from that period in the necklace section: "Dorte Runs".

Most people think they know how long a necklace should be. But it would still be nice if you could change the length of your necklace any time. That could be achieved with a necklace with two locks, so that a bit of the necklace could stay in the drawer on some days. But it could also be done by shortening each link – like here where the shortening results in a new shape for the piece. It’s this detail that gave me the idea for the pendant "Rabbit".

The lock on Red and Yellow Foliage turned out looking like a pair of bullfinches.

The lace-like D-Necklace is extremely long. It can be worn twice around the neck or even three times like as in this picture.

The nodding happens when you turn you head from side to side. The gold element nods and makes the silver kernel slide on the golden thread.

The idea for this pendant came to me accidentally, when I was shortening one of the longer necklaces and saw that a little clover, now at the front, had a personality of it’s own.

The “doubleness” of this necklace is obtained by fitting one necklace into the other.

The lock on the Kamma Necklace is slightly heavier than the rest of the necklace and will always be at the front as a little pendant.

The Japanese artist Toshikatzu Endo’s exhibition took place at Charlottenborg in 1993. During my visit I spent some time in front of the poster, wondering what it was I saw. A picture of a forest in the winter dusk and between the trees a circular fire. Not until I entered the actual exhibition did I understand some of the context: on the floor was a thick charred wooden ring, around 3 meters across. That had to be the ring from the poster? On the way home I imagined what it would look like when the fire went out and the ring glowed in deep red nuances. The red hues I envisioned that day inspired the enamel detail in the Endo necklace.

The Wavy Necklace was fashioned 10 years after the "Endo Necklace" and they both make you think of the Bronze Age, the Vikings. The construction of the links makes the necklace lie like a frieze around the neck.