(NEW YORK) On Friday the stylish ladies of New York lunched chez Christie’s amid the scenery of impressionist and modern art, as well as the designs of luxury jewelry designer Coomi Bhasin‘s Fall collection for her eponymous line Coomi. Town & Country hosted the event along with Christie’s to celebrate the auction house’s “Impressionist and Modern Art” sale taking place May 8th, while also fête-ing the fabulous Coomi designs, which, like the surrounding art, are relics of history.
The new collection of baubles was inspired by cave paintings that Bhasiin spent time sketching in the South of France and in India. “I’ve been a student of art all my life,” said Bhasin. “I’ve always been interested in cave paintings, because they’re man’s first expression and it’s about symbols before there was written language.” The jewelry was handmade with arrowheads sourced from private collectors. “I realized arrowheads were so important for the survival of mankind so I combined arrowheads with the cave paintings,” said Bhasin. “These are ancient arrowheads that are actually from the cradle of civilization!” Bhasin’s inspiration came to her years ago when she sat on the floors of the caves and sketched the primitive paintings of our ancestors during a time when tourists were able to see them up close. “At that time, there wasn’t all of the preservation that restricts tourists now. It was a different time,” said Bhasin. “I was very fortunate to have been able to sit there and drink everything in. like an alcoholic.”
As for how she finds her inspiration, Bhasin related a hilarious tale regarding one of her first major media inquiries after Cameron Diaz donned a pair of earrings on a red carpet. “I was sitting in my office three weeks later and my son told me, ‘Mom, you have a problem on your hands! You have People magazine on the phone and they want to know your inspiration,” said Bashin. “I had no idea what to say, because I had sketched the pair of earrings from a bag lady’s mole!” Her solution? “I told them I was inspired by fireworks on the fourth of july!”
And if that’s not endearing enough, Town & Country‘s style director, Stellene Volandes, recounted her first meeting with the designer to The Daily: “I met Coomi about nine years ago; she came up to the office to see me, with her jewelry in buckets and buckets and Tupperware,” Volandes recalled. “She described herself as a mother from New Jersey.” How did Bashin’s humble presentation manage to catch Volandes’ eye? “It was this fantastic big, bold, jewelry and I immediately started using it in shoots and writing about it,” said Volandes. “She’s found ancient artifacts season after season, like coins, venetian jugs, or now these arrowheads, from private collectors and transforms them into really wearable modern jewelry.”
PAIGE REDDINGER
