奢華珠寶，質樸在心

奢華珠寶，質樸在心

It’s fitting that a jeweler should live in a gem, and the Paris home of Marie-Hélène de Taillac, a penthouse apartment with views over the Parisian rooftops toward Saint-Sulpice, is a lovely one: simple, clean and understated, and in a constant dance with light. If you’ve ever dreamed of an Amélie-style garret sprinkled with a generous pinch of sophistication — and who hasn’t? — here it is, perched on the top floor of a building near de Taillac’s shop in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, complete with a terrace and climbing magnolias. “I love watching the clouds,” she says. “That is why I love this flat. In the summer we are out on the terrace, and in the winter we are by the fire.”

珠寶匠就應該住在閃亮的地方，這樣才相得益彰，而瑪麗-埃萊娜·德塔亞克(Marie-Hélène de Taillac)在巴黎的家——可以俯瞰遠至圣敘爾比斯教堂(Saint-Sulpice)的一片巴黎屋頂的頂樓公寓，就是個魅力十足的住處：簡單、整潔、質樸，而且流光飛舞。如果你曾夢想住在一間“愛美麗風格”(Amélie-style，出自2001年的法國電影《天使愛美麗》——譯注)的小閣樓，布置著很多精美絕倫的陳設——誰沒想過呢?——這就是了。此間公寓坐落在一棟大廈的頂層，靠近德塔亞克位于圣日耳曼德佩區(qū)(Saint-Germain- des-Prés)的珠寶店，公寓還帶有一個陽臺，種著愛攀爬的木蘭花。“我愛看云，”她說，“所以才這么喜愛這套公寓。夏天里，我們可以在陽臺上乘涼，而在冬天我們就守著火爐。”

The apartment, where she lives with her young son, Edmond, is perfectly compact, rather like being on a boat; a steep, narrow rail-less staircase leads to a shower room made of slatted wood, just like that on a Mediterranean yacht, on the way to de Taillac’s bedroom. A spare refuge from all the color and sparkle of her dazzling shop, her bedroom is pared down, as if to allow more space for her creative flights. Her bed is covered with a large Kashmir Loom blanket, and the walls are painted white, one side of the room is lined with windows and the other with cupboards filled with her clothes, in a rainbow of candy shades.

這套公寓雖然狹小擁擠，卻也井井有條，德塔亞克和她年幼的兒子埃德蒙(Edmond)住在這里，就像生活在一條船上;爬上陡峭、狹窄、沒有欄桿的樓梯，可以看見一間用板條搭建的淋浴室，很像地中海游艇上的那種;再往前走，就來到了德塔亞克的臥室。這間臥室和她那色彩絢爛又璀璨奪目的珠寶店相比，簡直像處狹小的避難所。德塔亞克縮小了臥室的空間，似乎是為了給別具一格的樓梯留出更多位置。她的床上鋪著一張寬大的克什米爾織毯，四面墻涂成了白色，房間一側是一字排開的窗戶，而另一側有一排衣櫥，里面掛滿了糖果色的衣服，像彩虹一樣層次分明。

Everywhere, splashes and pops of color draw the eye. Downstairs in the sitting room, chairs upholstered in turquoise surround a fireplace, over which de Taillac has placed a blue convex mirror and candlesticks holding green apple, watermelon and grape-hued candles, and among the cards and invitations is a divine jeweled mobile, one of her own designs. “It is very nice to wear jewelry, but it is very nice to have it around in the house too,” she says. Along those lines, she once made a kaleidoscope for Barneys and sells beautiful rock crystal domed boxes studded with cabochon jewels at her store. They are reminiscient of a time, the 1930s perhaps, when people would go to Cartier to have things made, endless boxes and dishes and things, each one prettier and more fun than the last.

房間里到處都是揮灑與跳躍的色彩，頗為吸引眼球。下樓來到客廳里，壁爐邊圍著幾把椅子，包著綠松石色的椅套。德塔亞克在壁爐上方裝了一面藍色的凸面鏡，又放了幾支燭臺，上面插著蘋果綠、西瓜紅和葡萄紫色的蠟燭。在一堆卡片和請柬中間，有一部裝飾著漂亮珠寶的手機，也是她自己的設計作品之一。“珠寶用來佩戴當然很好，但是用來點綴屋子也很不錯。”她說。出于這類想法，她有一次為巴尼斯紐約精品店(Barneys)做了一個萬花筒，還在自己店里出售一些漂亮的無色水晶制拱頂小盒，上面鑲有拋光的寶石。這些盒子容易令人回憶起往昔，或許是在20世紀30年代吧，人們都會去卡地亞(Cartier)定制東西。店里有數不清的盒子、盤子以及諸如此類的東西，每一件都比前面看到的更漂亮、更有趣。

Across the room from the fireplace, the dining room wall is covered in a silver de Gournay wallcovering, featuring a tree of life and masses of birds and butterflies. “It came from an old Chinese paper that the designer Jane Pendry found in San Francisco,” de Taillac says. “She took it to de Gournay and they copied it for me. But when it arrived I didn’t like the color of the birds — they weren’t bright enough!” She invited a friend to come over and repaint them in more vivid hues. “He made them more mad, expanded their tails and changed the breed of the birds,” she adds. “Acid yellow and orangy red and the flowers too — we added color!” De Taillac is a great advocate of customizing things to suit one’s own personality, a spirit that characterizes her shop as well. “I like to conceive the jewelry, and then someone makes it their own with the way they wear it,” she says. It’s an interesting notion, considering that her aesthetic is so strong, but the spirit of invention is infectious.

正對著壁爐的餐廳墻壁上，鋪著銀色的帝家麗(de Gournay)壁紙，上面畫著一棵生命之樹，以及成群的飛鳥與蝴蝶。“這幅畫來自一張古老的中國圖畫，設計師簡·彭德雷(JanePendry)在舊金山發(fā)現了它，”德塔亞克說，“她把這幅畫拿到帝家麗，請他們?yōu)槲覐椭屏艘环?。但是當我拿到畫時，并不喜歡這些鳥的顏色——它們不夠鮮艷!”于是她請來一位朋友，為那些鳥涂上了更艷麗的色彩。“他讓這些鳥更加迷人了，還把鳥尾畫長，改變了它們的品種，”她補充道，“有檸檬黃和橘紅色，我們?yōu)榛ǘ湟蔡砹诵╊伾?”德塔亞克是個人定制產品的堅定擁護者，這也是她的珠寶店所具有的精神特色。“我喜歡構思出一款珠寶的大概，然后讓它的擁有者以自己獨有的方式來佩戴，使其真正成為他們自己的東西，”她說。這個觀點十分有趣。想想看，她的審美風格如此強勢，但她的創(chuàng)造精神卻是這樣的有感染力。

I always wanted to have shops in Paris, Tokyo and New York,” de Taillac says, sitting at her 1970s glass and chrome dining table, a find from the famous Saint-Ouen flea market in Paris. She has just opened her first store in New York, thereby completing the triptych. (Tokyo was first, in 2003, and Paris came next, in 2004.) While the three locations are very different, reflecting not only their locales but de Taillac’s mood at the time of their design, they are all part of her charming realm. She has that wonderful, rather French talent for combining high quality with the whimsical. Her shop on Rue de Tournon is so pretty and joyful, painted powder blue, that it is easy to forget it is a purveyor of such precious and extravagant items as a $52,000 diamond necklace or a $15,000 swivel ring. The alluringly playful window display, designed by de Taillac’s niece, shows a row of brightly colored feathery parrots with one of her trademark necklaces of multicolored briolette gems garlanded between their beaks. In the New York shop, meanwhile, the walls are covered in fabric, a blue cotton printed in India with the MHT logo in gold. The effect is lovely, especially as reflected in the space’s many mirrors, inspired by recent trips to Marie-Antoinette’s boudoir at Versailles.

“我一直想在巴黎、東京和紐約開店，”德塔亞克說，她正坐在一張上世紀70年代的玻璃及鉻合金材質的餐桌旁，這張桌子是她從巴黎著名的圣旺 (Saint-Ouen)跳蚤市場上找到的。不久前，她在紐約的第一家店也開張了，終于完成了這幅“三聯畫”(她于2003年在東京開了第一家店，緊接著 2004年又在巴黎開了一家)。由于三家店的所在地迥然不同，并且德塔亞克在為它們做設計時的心境也不一，這三家店可謂是風格迥異。雖然如此，它們也都是德塔亞克的“魅力王國”的一部分。她有那么一種法國式的神奇天賦，能把絕佳的品質與異想天開的風格結合在一起。她在(巴黎)托儂大街(Rue de Tournon)開的那家店是淺灰藍色調的，顯得漂亮又明快，令人簡直一不小心就會忘記，店里在售的都是些多么珍貴而奢華的東西，比如5.2萬美元(約合人民幣32萬元)的鉆石項鏈，或是1.5萬美元(約合人民幣9.2萬元)的可旋轉戒指。店鋪那迷人有趣的櫥窗，是德塔亞克的侄女(或外甥女)設計的，一排毛色鮮艷的鸚鵡協力銜著德塔亞克的招牌設計之作，一條由橢圓形多彩寶石制成的項鏈，就像掛在鳥喙間的花環(huán)。而在紐約的店里，墻面覆著一層織物，那是在印度印染的一種藍色棉布，上面帶有金色的MHT標志。這一裝修效果非常美妙，尤其是在店內多面鏡子的反射之下。其設計靈感來自她最近參觀凡爾賽宮的瑪麗·安托瓦內特(Marie-Antoinette，法國路易十六的王后——譯注)閨房的經歷。

De Taillac started her business in 1996 with $10,000 and remains the owner. (Her three sisters are her partners.) “If I had a backer, it would be a nightmare,” she says with a laugh. The desire to start something of her own came after working in London in the fashion industry, first with the cult costume jewelers Butler & Wilson in the 1980s, followed by the jeweler Dinny Hall and then the fashion designer Victor Edelstein, famous for dressing the Princess of Wales. But it was Philip Treacy who inspired her to find her own passion. “He was living and breathing for the hat, and I realized I wanted to be as passionate as him,” she recalls. So, she took a sabbatical and went traveling in Asia. On a visit to the Gem Palace in Jaipur, India, she started observing the stonecutters at work. “I spent many hours there,” she says. “I could design a shape and they could make it.” What followed was a meeting of minds between de Taillac and Munnu Kasliwal, a jeweler and visionary who before his death last year at just 54 single-handedly changed the way Westerners regarded Indian jewelry.

1996年，德塔亞克拿出1萬美元(約合人民幣6.15萬元)開始創(chuàng)業(yè)，至今仍是這樁生意的所有者(她的三個姐妹是合伙人)。“如果我有一個贊助人，那就會是場惡夢。”她笑著說。在倫敦時尚界工作了一段時間后，她開始生出想自己創(chuàng)造點什么的念頭。上世紀80年代，她先是在一家邪典扮裝服飾珠寶公司 Butler & Wilson工作，接著是珠寶商Dinny Hall，再后來是因為給威爾士公主設計禮服而出名的時尚設計師維克多·埃德爾斯坦(Victor Edelstein)。但是最終啟發(fā)她找到自己愛好的人，卻是“帽子大師”菲利普·崔西(Philip Treacy)。“他為帽而生，為帽而活。而我意識到，自己也想像他一樣那么有熱情，”她回憶說。于是，她安排了一段時間休假，去了亞洲旅行。在印度齋浦爾(Jaipur)的珠寶商Gem Palace參觀期間，她開始仔細觀察那些工作中的寶石加工者。“我在那里待了很長時間，”她說，“我可以設計出形狀，然后請他們做出來。”接下來就是德塔亞克與蒙努·卡什利瓦爾(Munnu Kasliwal)之間的一拍即合。這位具有遠見卓識的珠寶商在去年剛剛年僅54歲時就英年早逝了。但此前，他僅憑一己之力就改變了西方人對印度珠寶的看法。

“Munnu was into doing something new,” she recalls. “He could have said, ‘We are busy and don’t have time,’ but he didn’t; we had the same creative vision. He was so lively and full of life. He said we can do whatever we set our minds to.”

“蒙努正要著手做什么新東西，”她回憶說，“他本來可以說‘我們很忙，沒有時間’，但是他沒有;我們對于創(chuàng)造擁有同樣的看法。他是那么的活躍，充滿生命力。他說，我們可以做任何我們內心想做的東西。”

There is a wonderful simplicity to de Taillac’s life and work, as well as a calm energy. Chalk it up to the fact that she meditates for an hour each day, or to her deep ardor for the enchanting corner of Paris she calls home. “It’s so beautiful here,” she says. “There is not an ugly thing for 10 blocks around.”

在工作和生活中，德塔亞克都保持著一種美好的質樸之心，而且很有定力。也許這可歸因于她每天冥想一小時的習慣，或是那個她最愛的地方——被她稱為“家”的一個巴黎的迷人角落。“這里太美了，”她說，“方圓十個街區(qū)之內，看不到一件丑陋的東西。”

Or maybe it’s her work with ancient stones that keeps de Taillac so grounded. Gems, she believes, have special properties: fire opal for fertility, smoky quartz for depression. “We live in a world ruled by money, but it is not all about that,” she says. “They are thousands of years in the earth before making a stone. It takes time to make something beautiful. Gems are the stars of the earth.”

又或許，正是她那打磨古老石頭的活計，讓德塔亞克保持了如此平和的心態(tài)。她相信寶石都帶有某種特別的屬性：比如火蛋白石(fire opal)意味著繁殖，而煙晶(smoky quartz)能消除抑郁。“雖然我們生活在一個金錢統(tǒng)治的世界，但它并不是世界的全部內涵，”她說，“在地球上，要經過上千年時間，才能形成一塊石頭。美好之物的產生總是需要花時間。寶石，就是地球上的星星。”