The atelier
Lilly Plau
Lilly Plau trained as a goldsmith in Florence and as a lapidary in Idar-Oberstein before founding the atelier in 2019.
The house makes a small number of pieces each year, each for one person, each once. Stones are cut on the premises. Metal is alloyed and drawn by hand.
There is no collection in the seasonal sense. There is an archive of what has been made, and a calendar of what can still be made this year.
A piece should look as if it had always existed, and as if nobody had made it.
Principles
Once
A design is made one time. Editions, where they exist, are small and numbered, and the drawing is retired.
Slowly
Four to eleven months for a piece. Most of that time is looking, not making.
Quietly
No names on the outside. A hallmark inside, and a green stone where it can be found by the person who wears it.
Marks
Every piece carries the house mark, struck by hand inside the band or behind the setting, and the assay mark.
Where the design allows, an emerald is set where only the wearer will see it. It is the signature of the house.