At the intersection of metal and plant come the striking offerings of French jewelry label Litanies of Skin. The creations of artist and designer Maëlle Cadoret, the brand forges a powerful combination of nature and macabre, fusing iconic symbols with unique craftsmanship. Cadoret uses resin, a plant-based material with mysterious qualities along with stainless steel and the result are true works of art. We speak with the designer about her process, inspiration and more in this great Q&A below.
photo credit: dvwphotographie
The Brvtalist: What is your background as an artist/designer? Do you work in other mediums and has jewelry always been something you created?
Maëlle Cadoret: I never attended a fashion or jewelry school and my skills are all self-taught. I started creating first pieces around15 years ago. While I've worked in other fields I have always enjoyed making jewelry. Later, I enrolled in several training courses with professionals and craftsmen (bobbin lace makers and jewelers) on my own, outside of the casual fashion system. In 2012 I wanted to enhance my own aesthetic universe through my own brands Le Train Fantôme (now Imus Nocte) and since last year, Litanies Of Skin. I'm a hard-working girl, my job is my passion. I'm also learning bobbin lace making and patterns design as part of personal works. I'm living in south of France, in Haut-Languedoc natural park. I love long hikes in the woods, taking pictures of natural textures, landscapes or ruins (chapels, cemeteries..) which are testimonies from the past we need to preserve. I also shoot pretty girls from time to time. Speaking about my jewels, I always start with drawings – a mandatory medium to achieve my ideas.
TB: I would love to hear about working with resin. What drew you to it and how it is the same or different than working with other materials?
MC: It's the main material I use for Litanies Of Skin. I launched this project because I was interested in creating something really different with a natural, cruelty-free, black material. It took me 2 and a half years to discover the final recipe. It's a constraining material which forces me to make one of the kind, hand carved items and that's the main particularity. I can materialize things I have in mind, while elaborating personal techniques with the resin – it's a limitless artistic freedom. I can also realize inclusions in the resin: fine stones (like black tourmaline, my favorite one) or others elements like ashes and hairs. It's also an eco-friendly material, which is very important to me at this time. To protect the jewels and for the finishes, I'm using a wax made by french monks, based on an ancestral recipe.
TB: You use very iconic symbols (skull, heart, etc) but give each piece a very unique character. What types of things are you inspired by?
MC: These are powerful symbols and I have included them in my collections since the beginning. You can easily divert from their original meaning, which provide a real freedom of interpretation. I like to play on ambiguities and find this very interesting. These are universal icons, like the symbolic shape of the heart which gives life to human passion and romantic love (even if the heart shape had also other meanings and uncertain origins and age). The skull design is terrifying and fascinating, associated to death and human vanities and can be traced back to Greco-Roman antiquity. The cross design was used for centuries prior to AD. I have been raised in a family where religion was almost something prohibited and this certainly has shaped my fascination for religious symbols. Furthermore, I'm living in a region with a strong historic background, with plenty of rich cultural heritage. In every village there are sculptures, paintings, Romanesque chapels with old cemeteries, and all of these have an inevitable and big influence on my works. Nature also has a great place in my creations, to the point that I need to spend some time in the forest everyday. I'm also sure that I would not have developed my own recipe of vegetal resin if I would have stayed in a city. I am sensitive to the poetic abstraction of Pierrette Bloch, to the black fascination of Pierre Soulages and to the complex and refined design of Aubrey Beardsley. At the moment I'm listening a lot to Eraas, Ritual Howls or Radikal Satan while working in my studio.
TB: What is your vision for the brand and what's coming up next?
MC: 2017 already looks like an exciting year! A new series of metal pieces will shortly be released (in a very interesting alloy). I also expect to work with tattoo artists on a capsule collection. I would like to continue to develop unisex designs (it's interesting to work in mens items). I have some editorials made with artist Peter Coulson being published soon. I'm also looking to shoot with non-standard models, and I'm always opened to work on something fresh and new.
We would like to thank Ms. Cadoret for this great conversation and we look forward to the new offerings from the brand. Follow Litanies of Skin on Facebook and Instragram.
-JRS