The first monograph that highlights the colourful world of marie-hélène de taillac who revolutionised the codes of jewellery 23 years ago with her poetic and personal approach to coloured stone. an exclusive meeting with this aesthete of jewellery. "gold and gems", marie-hélène de taillacrizzoli editioninterview with marie-hélène de taillac, designer:we all work, we leave in the morning, we go back home in the evening, often after dinner, if we have dinner, so there must be jewels that correspond to a lifestyle and i think that having jewellery and beautiful things that we can wear all the time was a great revolution. the way to wear the jewel is more casual, perhaps more rock, in fact it may be a rock influence to have all the stones, but with precious things which is very fun. i am someone who senses the trends, i am very influenced by fashion and i think i felt this need to wear something precious, valuable but which isn’t ostentatious. the desire of the women who wear my jewellery is to wear something beautiful but for herself because i work the coloured stone which value is quite difficult to define and so it’s really a very personal pleasure.the colour is very important to me, so when i choose the stones, i really like to mix them and it’s also something that i brought to jewellery because i’m not from a family of jewellers, i think that i’m a lot more iconoclastic and i have mixed the stones that wouldn’t have mixed together. i really wanted that when i choose a stone, i make the stone as beautiful as possible so it’s almost like a painting. i am there with a table covered with stones and i chose one or the other and i put them next to each other and see if it is perfect or not.i have a passion for gold so you will often see gold weaves in my work. i really like that all of a sudden this material becomes like crochet, knit or gold sequins. i really worked the jewels as if i would’ve worked embroidery. in my job we say that you have to choose a stone that speaks to you and it’s true that the stones speak to me. why one chooses one stone rather than another is generally to do with the shine, and it’s the shine that i am sensitive to and that my customers are also sensitive to and i really like that the stones have lots of life.