Forms isn’t a household name, but the Hong Kong jewelry house is drawing attention for its unusual contemporary style.
A Japanese buckle from the late 19th century inspired the company’s co-founder Tzvika Janover’s latest obsession. The buckle was crafted in a Japanese gold and copper alloy called shakudo, its velvety brown patina unlike anything he’d seen before.
The recipe for shakudo is unknown; each Japanese metalsmith had his own secret recipe. Mr. Janover was determined to recreate it himself, a process that ended up requiring more than a year of experimenting with alloys to achieve what he said was the same rich patina and durability as the original material.
He used the striking yet subtle dark lustrous metal to create a sculpted ring, set with a rare 6.5-carat orange-brown diamond, along with a pair of shakudo earrings, each with an 8-carat green peridot drop and diamond details.
Forms, a jewelry house that sells through its salon in Hong Kong and an office in Geneva, introduced the new pieces at TEFAF, the European Fine Art Foundation fair, in Maastricht, the Netherlands, this past March.
