Loading ...In Lebanon, a Jeweler Modernizes a 19th Century Setting
From the Beirut collection, a pendant in diamonds and pink gold.
By LAURA RYSMAN
As a boy in Beirut, Lebanon, Selim Mouzannar roamed the incense-scented halls of the souk, where members of the city’s Christian community ran its hundred jewelry workshops — Mr. Mouzannar’s father and grandfather among them.
The souk was destroyed in 1976 during the early days of the country’s civil war, but for Mr. Mouzannar, now a 53-year-old designer with spiky gray hair and his own Beirut-based jewelry line, it remains a potent memory.
During afternoons helping his father there, Mr. Mouzannar passed vitrines jammed with jewels crafted in the Falamenk Ottoman style.
The technique, an East/West invention dating to the late 19th century, combined rose-cut diamonds faceted in Antwerp, Belgium, with silver-bottomed bezel settings, an Ottoman trick that enhanced the sparkle in the stones. (Falamenk means “Flemish” in Arabic.)
Mr. Mouzannar has created modern pieces in the Falamenk Ottoman style, using high-quality stones that need no silver underneath to glimmer. “No tricks,” he said.
The rose-cut gems are “less aggressive, more humble,” he added, than the bright look of contemporary faceted stones. The style, in diamonds as well as pastel gems like morganite, aquamarine and heliodor, has become his signature in Beirut and abroad.
At his workshop, Mr. Mouzannar now is experimenting with enamel, trying to reintroduce the style using powdered glass that preceded the resin version of today.
“Look at the old Ottoman enamel pieces — they have more depth than enamel today,” he said.