When old spoons make great necklaces

Fashion week is back in full force, and there is a lot to see. Blink (or scroll too fast on Instagram) and you’ll miss the details: small bags, tall shoes, feathered hats, leather capes, and diamond dog collars. So, as part of a new series, Wow Moment, we’ll be highlighting things we’ve seen on the catwalks that have thrilled or mystified us.
PARIS – For designers who care about the environment, the concept of zero waste is important: don’t let a single piece of fabric go to the landfill. For Marine Serre, the young dynamic French designer, this rule also extends to the cutlery drawer.
Her new jewelry designs – part of her spring 2022 collection, shown Monday night in a Parisian courtyard – consisted of antique silverware acquired from flea markets, Ms. Serre said. A spoon became a bracelet, wrapped around the wrist and secured with a single red gemstone, or an oversized earring with a dangling silver chain.
If the earring only used the bowl of a spoon, the rest was reused for other parts, like a long, teardrop-shaped brooch made from the handle. âUse the whole spoon,â Ms. Serre said, much like using the whole animal, but different.
Ms. Serre’s upcycling is no surprise. The designer has always reused and remixed, like the tea towels and tablecloths she transformed into clothes matching the collection’s kitchen motif.
His technique either. Silverware has been used to make jewelry for centuries. But vintage cutlery may seem at odds with the post-apocalyptic aesthetic Ms. Serre has perfected since her first runway show in 2018. It’s decorative and delicate, reminiscent of a quiet domesticity. (Or, less pretentious, it’s cottagecore.)
But Ms. Serre addresses that tension by dramatically mixing metals, hardening pretty patterns with chains, or emphasizing the sharpness of the tips of a fork. Several of the finished pieces have an advantage – asymmetrical or drooping, corrupted into something distinctly his own. In some cases, she’s accomplished it by incorporating her signature crescent moon into the room, engraving the design, or hanging it from a charm.
There is a gold plated spoon necklace fit for a warrior. There is an ornate fork body chain made for a witch. Or just a person who, just for a moment, wants to feel like a warrior or a witch.