CaratThe $21,650 lemon: Monica Rich Kosann's fruit that opens
Three pendants in the Enchanted Garden series — a cherry at $10,985, a pear at $14,500 and a lemon at $21,650 — each a hinged locket concealing garnets or diamond ‘seeds’ inside 18-karat gold and pavé.
The most talked-about lemon in American jewelry costs $21,650 and is available by special order only. It is the top of Monica Rich Kosann's three-piece Enchanted Garden fruit series, pendants that debuted at Couture and carry the designer's signature mechanic: they open.
Whimsy holds its value when the engineering is real, and a locket house doing trompe-l'oeil fruit is playing squarely to its own strength rather than chasing a trend. The lemon's special-order status is the tell: this is couture logic applied to the pendant case, made when wanted, never stocked.
The desk's only quibble is arithmetic; at $21,650, the seeds had better be the sweetest part.
| Figure | |
|---|---|
| Lemon — Yellow Diamonds, Special Order | 21,650 |
| Pear — Sapphire, Peridot, Tsavorite | 14,500 |
| Cherry — Ruby Pavé, Garnet Within | 10,985 |
IA lemon, by special order
The lemon wears 0.46 carats of yellow diamonds and 0.48 carats of yellow sapphires over 18-karat yellow gold, with tsavorite leaves and a white-diamond stem, and splits on its hinge to reveal white-diamond seeds.
IIThe cheaper branches
The cherry, at $10,985, is the entry point: 2.65 carats of ruby pavé with diamond accents, opening to a 0.75-carat cabochon garnet, a stone-in-fruit conceit executed with a straight face.
The pear, at $14,500, is the colorist's piece, layering a 3.50-carat yellow sapphire with orange sapphire, peridot and 1.36 carats of tsavorite, and concealing five pear-shaped garnets totaling 1.72 carats.
Kosann, a house built on lockets and the things people hide in them, calls the series an exercise in surprise, "a piece of fine jewelry that's a tad bit cheeky".
IIISculpture is the season
The fruits arrive into a market that has been rewarding exactly this kind of object.
Graff's twelve butterfly jabot pins, Pomellato's mandala capsule and the general brooch-and-objet revival this page has tracked all season point the same direction: at the top of the market, jewelry is drifting from adornment toward miniature sculpture, and houses are competing on mechanics, hinges, tremblant wings, hidden compartments, as much as on carats.
01Method · the desk’s arithmetic+
Each pendant opens to a hidden stone or diamond 'seeds'
02Sources1 document
Graff pins the butterfly: twelve brooches built to tremble
The season's other moving objects: twelve butterflies, en tremblant
The trade, filed before the New York open.
Prices, tenders and the one story that moved the industry overnight. Ninety seconds.
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