Ювелирный бренд Sauvereign запускает коллаборацию с китайским художником Цзэн Фаньцзи

LONDON — Sauvereign, best known in the West for the sculptural brooch worn by Cillian Murphy at his 2024 Oscars win, is looking to make a bigger splash in the high-end jewelry and lifestyle space with a collaboration with Zeng Fanzhi, one of China’s most influential contemporary artists. The six-year-old Hong Kong-based label evolved from R. Sanderson, a footwear brand launched by founder Bertrand Mak with British shoe designer Rupert Sanderson in 2017 as a joint venture. After taking sole control in 2020, Mak renamed and repositioned the business as a house operating at the intersection of jewelry, design and sculpture, anchored in the idea of “art to wear.” The partnership with Zeng, whose works are held in major international institutions and command blue-chip attention at auction, is both a creative and cultural milestone for Mak. You May Also Like “Zeng for me is the most sovereign living artist from China. His knowledge of art history is so deep and expansive it truly is a privilege to learn from him in proximity,” Mak told WWD. “His continuous reinvention, East-West synthesis, and restlessness for excellence and perfection resonate with my own philosophy.” Although the brand has a history of collaborating with master craftsmen and artists from diverse disciplines and cultural backgrounds, Mak said it was the first time it tapped one of Chinese origin. “This collaboration with Zeng is particularly timely for our sixth anniversary and a momentous step to cement my vision for Sauvereign as a byword for precious art for wear,” he added. Zeng’s signature, energetic brushwork and his exploration of the psychological tensions of modern life were translated into a limited run of sculptural ornaments that can be worn as either brooches or shoe clips. Also part of the collaboration are high jewelry pieces set with multicolored diamonds, sapphires and spinels. Expanding into a broader lifestyle universe, Sauvereign is also distilling Zeng’s distinctive personal style across sculptural handles and modular adornments for leather goods and home, handcrafted coffrets, and a horological project with independent watchmaker Kari Voutilainen. Mak deemed the project with Zeng as a bet on an increasingly sophisticated luxury consumer that is emerging in a market where the word luxury is “often industrialized” and feels almost “subversive.” Each piece represents “a density of labor and knowledge that is increasingly rare,” he added. “To position luxury as something that must be learned rather than simply acquired is to narrow one’s audience. But a new generation of collectors is emerging, who are less interested in overt status and more attuned to cultural capital.” Strategically, Sauvereign is using the tie-up to push its retail concept further into gallery territory and set a benchmark for future openings. Its latest store within the high-end shopping complex Landmark in Hong Kong offers a more immersive, gallery-like environment where Zeng’s original, previously unseen works created for Sauvereign are displayed alongside pieces from the collaboration and other original artworks. Separately, key pieces from the Sauvereign x Zeng Fanzhi collaboration will also be featured within Zeng’s forthcoming solo exhibitions across three continents. — with contributions from Lily Templeton.