An author jewel is almost never born in the workshop. With Valérie Barkowski, it is first born elsewhere, in the chance of a journey, a piece sourced at a market.
There are drawers I have been opening for twenty years.
They contain nothing precious in the sense jewellers mean it. Antique beads bought at a market in Oakland. An old rosary found at a flea market in Provence. A chandelier pendant. Vintage ribbons. A piece of driftwood picked up on a beach in Colombia. A clasp forgotten at the bottom of a box. Components as ordinary as they are rare.
When I look at them today, I see the places again. The journeys. The detours. The hours spent walking and finding nothing. Each object arrived there by chance. None was waiting for the necklace it would eventually join.
When I compose a necklace, my work begins outside. In a flea market I leave empty-handed. In a cardboard box I rummage through for half an hour. In a market where a single bead is enough to justify the trip. On a journey that had nothing to do with a future jewel.
People often imagine that creating begins the moment you assemble the pieces. For me, a necklace already exists, in separate parts, before I know it. I have kept certain beads for twenty years. I do not always remember whether they came from a market in Cairo, the Brussels flea market, a bazaar in Jaipur, or another detour. It does not matter. I only know they waited for the right moment.
That time is nowhere to be seen. No one counts it. Yet it accompanies every author necklace.
Openness decides what comes next
When I walk through a flea market, I no longer look for a specific element. I tried. It never works. I look at what is there. Openness decides what comes next. An old wooden-bead necklace, a silver fibula, a button made by an artisan, a piece of frosted glass that the sea has already partly shaped. I let the finds guide the projects. Some will sometimes wait several years before finding their place. Sometimes I come home with a single find. Often I come home with nothing. Yet those days are part of the creative process.
That is also why I smile when I hear it said that a creation made from reclaimed objects costs less. The material seems almost free. The reasoning seems logical. It simply forgets everything that comes before.
Finding. Sorting. Keeping. Waiting. Then starting again. I believe that is why my one-of-a-kind pieces remain so.
Two people sometimes ask me for the same author necklace. I would like to be able to say yes. I almost never can. The elements that made up the first one were gone the moment I used them. The old rosary found on a Sunday morning had no hidden twin. The piece of driftwood picked up on a beach will never come back. Even if I wanted to reproduce exactly the same jewel, it would not be an option.
That impossibility is part of creation. It is probably the greatest difference between this work and industrial production. I build a story with what already exists, without fulfilling an order.
The days when I come home from a flea market without buying a single object are not wasted days. They teach me to look again. To slow down a little. To accept that not everything is available immediately. The word “slow” prints easily on a label. In my work, it refers to a real duration: the time it takes an object to find its form, its balance and its place, through detours, waiting, encounters and searching. That duration cannot be shortened without changing the nature of what one creates.
The real time it takes for an object to find its form, its balance and its place. A time made of detours, waiting, encounters and searching. A time impossible to speed up without profoundly changing the nature of what one creates.
When I open my drawers today, I still do not see stock. I see years of walking. Journeys. Flea markets crossed without buying anything. Objects that waited for their moment.
That is where an author necklace begins. Long before the workshop. Long before the price. In that time spent that one almost never sees, but which gives each author jewel its story.
An author jewel is a jewellery creation designed and composed by an identified maker, using selected vintage materials rather than standardised ones. With Valérie Barkowski, author jewellery most often takes the form of a necklace: each author necklace brings together antique beads, rosaries, fragments found at flea markets or brought back from travels. It differs from a series piece in the absence of a reproducible model.
What is the difference between an author necklace and a designer necklace?
Both expressions refer to a similar reality: a designer necklace belongs to the broader family of designer jewellery, conceived and made by a single person, outside any mass production. With Valérie Barkowski, the term author necklace is used to emphasise the approach: each piece is born from time spent researching and personal composition, rather than a reproducible process. All the house’s designer jewellery follows the same logic, whether necklaces, jewellery-scarves or one-of-a-kind accessories.
How is Valérie Barkowski’s author jewellery made?
Each author jewel begins with a research phase, sometimes lasting several years: markets, flea markets, travels. The antique beads, rosaries, flea-market finds and other vintage materials are kept until they find their place in a composition. The final assembly is done by hand in Marrakech. It is a process that places each jewellery creation within a long timeframe, far from mass production.
Can you order several copies of the same author jewel?
No. The materials used – antique beads, rosaries, fragments of driftwood – exist in a single instance only. Each author jewel therefore remains a one-of-a-kind piece, impossible to reproduce identically.
Where can you discover Valérie Barkowski author jewellery?
The author jewels can be seen at the V.Barkowski boutique, in the Marrakech medina, alongside the house’s other one-of-a-kind pieces: scarves, cushions and accessories. At present, they are not sold online.
In 1997, Valérie Barkowski extracts a single stitch from Fez embroidery, enlarges it, and scatters it irregularly across a white cotton pillowcase. This is the first piece in the Noon collection. Twenty-nine years later, it is still made by hand in the Marrakech workshop, with the same gesture, with the same thread. Fez embroidery: what …
A Contemporary Home at the Gates of Marrakech Riad Soumaya is located on the Ourika Road, a few minutes from Marrakech. The house is contemporary but designed as a riad, echoing the first riad that the owners, a Belgian couple, had lived in the kasbah. Their experience in the medina inspired the architecture of this …
Author jewellery: travel, chance and creation
An author jewel is almost never born in the workshop. With Valérie Barkowski, it is first born elsewhere, in the chance of a journey, a piece sourced at a market.
There are drawers I have been opening for twenty years.
They contain nothing precious in the sense jewellers mean it. Antique beads bought at a market in Oakland. An old rosary found at a flea market in Provence. A chandelier pendant. Vintage ribbons. A piece of driftwood picked up on a beach in Colombia. A clasp forgotten at the bottom of a box. Components as ordinary as they are rare.
When I look at them today, I see the places again. The journeys. The detours. The hours spent walking and finding nothing. Each object arrived there by chance. None was waiting for the necklace it would eventually join.
An author jewel begins long before the workshop
When I compose a necklace, my work begins outside. In a flea market I leave empty-handed. In a cardboard box I rummage through for half an hour. In a market where a single bead is enough to justify the trip. On a journey that had nothing to do with a future jewel.
People often imagine that creating begins the moment you assemble the pieces. For me, a necklace already exists, in separate parts, before I know it. I have kept certain beads for twenty years. I do not always remember whether they came from a market in Cairo, the Brussels flea market, a bazaar in Jaipur, or another detour. It does not matter. I only know they waited for the right moment.
That time is nowhere to be seen. No one counts it. Yet it accompanies every author necklace.
Openness decides what comes next
When I walk through a flea market, I no longer look for a specific element. I tried. It never works. I look at what is there. Openness decides what comes next. An old wooden-bead necklace, a silver fibula, a button made by an artisan, a piece of frosted glass that the sea has already partly shaped. I let the finds guide the projects. Some will sometimes wait several years before finding their place. Sometimes I come home with a single find. Often I come home with nothing. Yet those days are part of the creative process.
Time is part of creation
That is also why I smile when I hear it said that a creation made from reclaimed objects costs less. The material seems almost free. The reasoning seems logical. It simply forgets everything that comes before.
Finding. Sorting. Keeping. Waiting. Then starting again. I believe that is why my one-of-a-kind pieces remain so.
Why my necklaces remain one-of-a-kind pieces
Two people sometimes ask me for the same author necklace. I would like to be able to say yes. I almost never can. The elements that made up the first one were gone the moment I used them. The old rosary found on a Sunday morning had no hidden twin. The piece of driftwood picked up on a beach will never come back. Even if I wanted to reproduce exactly the same jewel, it would not be an option.
That impossibility is part of creation. It is probably the greatest difference between this work and industrial production. I build a story with what already exists, without fulfilling an order.
The days when I come home from a flea market without buying a single object are not wasted days. They teach me to look again. To slow down a little. To accept that not everything is available immediately. The word “slow” prints easily on a label. In my work, it refers to a real duration: the time it takes an object to find its form, its balance and its place, through detours, waiting, encounters and searching. That duration cannot be shortened without changing the nature of what one creates.
The real time it takes for an object to find its form, its balance and its place. A time made of detours, waiting, encounters and searching. A time impossible to speed up without profoundly changing the nature of what one creates.
When I open my drawers today, I still do not see stock. I see years of walking. Journeys. Flea markets crossed without buying anything. Objects that waited for their moment.
That is where an author necklace begins. Long before the workshop. Long before the price. In that time spent that one almost never sees, but which gives each author jewel its story.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an author jewel?
An author jewel is a jewellery creation designed and composed by an identified maker, using selected vintage materials rather than standardised ones. With Valérie Barkowski, author jewellery most often takes the form of a necklace: each author necklace brings together antique beads, rosaries, fragments found at flea markets or brought back from travels. It differs from a series piece in the absence of a reproducible model.
What is the difference between an author necklace and a designer necklace?
Both expressions refer to a similar reality: a designer necklace belongs to the broader family of designer jewellery, conceived and made by a single person, outside any mass production. With Valérie Barkowski, the term author necklace is used to emphasise the approach: each piece is born from time spent researching and personal composition, rather than a reproducible process. All the house’s designer jewellery follows the same logic, whether necklaces, jewellery-scarves or one-of-a-kind accessories.
How is Valérie Barkowski’s author jewellery made?
Each author jewel begins with a research phase, sometimes lasting several years: markets, flea markets, travels. The antique beads, rosaries, flea-market finds and other vintage materials are kept until they find their place in a composition. The final assembly is done by hand in Marrakech. It is a process that places each jewellery creation within a long timeframe, far from mass production.
Can you order several copies of the same author jewel?
No. The materials used – antique beads, rosaries, fragments of driftwood – exist in a single instance only. Each author jewel therefore remains a one-of-a-kind piece, impossible to reproduce identically.
Where can you discover Valérie Barkowski author jewellery?
The author jewels can be seen at the V.Barkowski boutique, in the Marrakech medina, alongside the house’s other one-of-a-kind pieces: scarves, cushions and accessories. At present, they are not sold online.
To go further
These necklaces cannot be planned or reproduced. They are born of a time one never sees – and cannot speed up.
→ Discover the one-of-a-kind pieces at the V.Barkowski boutique in Marrakech.
→ Read the story of AYA artisanal passementerie
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