Sparkling details
At the end of 2021, a time of uncertainty when the stars are in great need of being rekindled by poets, photographers Buonomo & Cometti make the details sparkle. Worn by both men and women, Begüm Khan jewellery reveals its symbolism. Text: Isabelle Cerboneschi. Photos & Style: Buonomo & Cometti.
What is left when we live in the present without being able to make plans for the future? And even though we have always known that we could not control the future, we miss those times, when it was possible to build castles in the air. There remains the taste for beauty, against all odds, there remains the desire.
In the secrecy of their studio, the photographers Buonomo and Cometti have invited models to play their role as beautifiers. Their images resemble portraits by Caravaggio, the Bacchus in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, for example. It has been said that Caravaggio made the men he painted desirable. Desire is often in the eyes of the beholder.
In Buonomo and Cometti’s images, desire lies in the eyes of model, behind those gold-leafed eyes: desire to be, to please, to be liked, whatever happens. Desire is expressed through Begüm Khan jewellery, adorned with golden insects and flora, whose symbolism escapes us because we have lost the sense of the sacred.
Begüm Kiroglu has lost nothing. The young woman who created this jewellery brand, grew up in Istanbul in a family of Ottoman art collectors, with the Grand Bazaar as her playground. Her birthplace being located on the border between East and West, she chose to go to the Far East, to study Chinese culture and art in Shanghai.
« I learned that art should not be limited to precious porcelain hidden behind glass,” she says. « Art was part of our daily life and I consider it a way of life. » Her jewels, made of gold-plated bronze, are like ready-to-wear art, handcrafted by Turkish artisans in an old workshop near the Grand Bazaar.
Nature is a source of inspiration for Begüm Kiroglu and each piece is a kind of Eden populated by beetles, ladybirds, turtles, koi fishes that evolve within a luxuriant nature adorned with pink sapphires and baroque pearls.
There is a world contained in her jewellery. There is a world contained in these four images…
May each one seek and find in this end of year of light and shadow, the beautiful scintillating detail.
