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In 1965, Jean Dinh Van founded a completely unexpected jewelry brand, where he crafted metal pieces by hand like a sculptor. His vision: to sublimate everyday objects in order to create jewelry that may be worn by everyone, every day.
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A gifted visionary, his pioneering nature was also reflected in his distribution decisions. He was quickly selected as one of the four most talented French jewellers and was asked to hold an exhibition in Montreal. On this occasion, Dinh Van was spotted by Cartier New York, and together they signed a distribution agreement immediately after. Even today, he remains one of only a few creators to have collaborated on unique pieces. His story had come full circle: the Maison where he was first trained had now become his springboard to the rest of the world.
The dinh van Maison was born.
A man of his times, he thrived on the new trends spreading across Paris and Europe in the mid-1960s.
Amid this creative whirlwind, he discovered that design—much like fashion or the writing of young talented artists—could explore new frontiers of expression: the Bauhaus, the sculptor César, the author Françoise Sagan, or even the biggest names in couture, like Courrèges and his first mini skirt or Yves Saint-Laurent, the «little prince» of haute couture who invented the modern version of luxury ready-to-wear. With jewellery still untouched by this revolution, Jean Dinh Van decided to seize change and began to dream of something new. Why was jewellery still stuck in boxes if fashion was taking to the streets? How could he invent jewellery that wasn’t just meant for special occasions?
Through his creative genius, the young troublemaker succeeded in combining modern design with a particular brand of simplicity. He made his first ideas a reality in 1965, reinventing perceptions of precious jewellery. Dinh Van’s jewellery designs were highly wearable yet incredibly sophisticated; sophisticated in their details, but above all in their material, gold, which he cherished more than anything and celebrated with every breakthrough.
Thanks to his Parisian social networks, Jean Dinh Van met numerous personalities such as Pierre Cardin, Paco Rabanne, César, etc... who would play a role in the Maison’s history.
And also Marie-Françoise Bleustein-Blanchet, daughter of the founder of Publicis, displayed his pieces in the Publicis Drugstore, which became the first ever outlet to sell his brand.
Jean Dinh Van had always been unfettered by traditional features of jewellery. Stoking his rebellious side, he drew inspiration from everyday objects around him. Purely functional items with simple appearances (a key, a lock, a razor blade or even a drawing pin) were raised to the rank of precious motifs, finding grandeur in their metal form.
Without hesitation, Jean Dinh Van revolutionised and reinterpreted the codes of luxury with creations that were both simple and bold, acquiring before others a taste for authenticity. At odds with existing definitions of luxury, he wrote hisown through his creations, a luxury made to be understated, not ostentatious, that brought to life pieces of jewellery with essential pared-back designs; jewellery that could be worn every day as trusty companions, objects of affection, suiting any style and every occasion.
While succession had for centuries dictated the destiny of jewellery, Dinh Van invented inclusive pieces that were genderless and ageless. Free of any cultural or historical references, they could be worn indiscriminately by men and women alike, from all generations. Shared rather than inherited, they marked a common admiration for a contemporary aesthetic that tended towards the universal.
While other Maisons in the Place Vendôme never dared work without preliminary sketches, Jean Dinh Van started from the material to create his jewellery. He worked the gold instinctively, intuition guiding his hand until the perfect shape was achieved and his idea materialised into a piece, like serendipitous creative encounters obvious only to him. Thus, in a form of iteration, one sculptural prototype after another, he demonstrated the work of an artisan creator.
Jean Dinh Van swam against the current of every jewellery cliché: where rings were round, he made the first square ring, while medallions often featured religious motifs, his were hollowed out in the centre or inspired by industrialisation, introducing tubular shapes that had, at the time, never been seen before in jewellery.
In the same way, he relished creating new combinations of materials, like gold and steel, and went against something that every other jeweller sought to do: making the clasp as discreet as possible. Jean Dinh Van decided to make it the centrepiece of his jewellery.
Anti-conventional in nature, he thought to pair these precious gold creations with a simple satin string, embodying the concept of uninhibited jewellery. This disruptive blend was in perfect keeping with his desire to reconcile elements that were by their very nature contradictory.
Modern and easy to pair, this style gradually became all the rage and one of the Maison’s greatest successes, thus making jewellery accessible for all.
During his formative years, Jean Dinh Van became interested in raw materials and uncut stones. He began working with metal and sculpting the raw materials to create his own unique repertoire of shapes: sleek, essential, stripped down in appearance, but sophisticated in design.
In 1967, he created the "Deux Perles" ring for Pierre Cardin, a piece that would be "the key to everything that came afterwards". This square ring set with two pearls, one white and one gray, pivoting on the top like a Chinese abacus, is the perfect example of the structural design that is so characteristic of the Dinh Van creations.
Jean Dinh Van remained loyal to classic materials: a lot of metal and particularly, yellow gold. Ornamental stones progressively appeared in Dinh Van’s pieces and were at the origin of iconic creations, such as the "Impression" collection.