“They call me a jewelry designer, but I call myself a jewelry redesigner.” So says Turkish jewel maestro Alp Sagnak of Atelier Minyon in his company’s new promotional video, “King’s Fool”.
If you’ve never checked out Sagnak’s line, stop reading and immediately visit atelierminyon.com, then come back to read about his latest collection, King’s Fool. You’ll be awestruck by not only by his technical mastery, but even more so by the visceral, hard-edged and astonishingly detailed beauty of his designs.
The new video gives the viewer fresh insight into the method behind the madness of Alp Sagnak and the King’s Fool collection. The jewelry is based on the masque motif and the idea that we are all kings and fools simultaneously. There are six characters represented by the rings in the collection, and all are famous jesters (or jestresses) in the worlds of literature and opera: Rigoletto, Yorick, La Jardiniere, Mathurine, The Fool, and Puck. As Sagnak says, “The irony is the jesters and jestresses were the only ones who could speak to the ruler as they wished to, as they think. The collection is sarcastic, it is very risky, it is so real, it is so scary. Every individual has to face themselves about ego, self and our soul.”
I love this video and wish more designers would produce films like this to explain their inspirations and the stories behind their pieces. The production on this particular video is top-notch – worthy of the jewelry and the designer captured in it. It’s also brief enough to be a quick view yet long enough to make the viewer feel as if he’s getting a significant backstage look at the line. I highly recommend you take four minutes out of your day to watch it. It will remind you why we’re in this business and inspire you to take your own work – whatever it may be – to a master’s level, as Alp Sagnak has done.