The golden feast: Elhanati's jewelled cutlery

Orit Elhanati’s impressive collaborations with Khaite and Helle Mardahl Studio show that the Danish-based jewellery designer is open to challenging her own point of view from time to time. But her ongoing artistic partnership with Argentine artist Conie Vallese goes beyond a single idea. Instead, it has taken root by way of the pair’s lifelong friendship, so that their collaborative ideas continually branch out and flourish beyond their personal, artistic pursuits.

Various collections have interlaced their joint tendency towards the romantic, historical, textural and floral and, having created a cache of sizeable flower-inspired jewels last year, Elhanti and Vallese went on to produce a small sterling-silver cutlery collection, ‘Jardin’.

Now, they have launched a gold-plated sterling silver edition of their interior objects, comprising an olive fork, a butter knife and spoons, but this time, with a shimmer of black diamonds and black spinels adding a particularly precious lustre. Having debuted the new collection at Salone del Mobile 2024, as part of Alcova’s Villa Borsani exhibition, the new ‘Jardin’ range has blossomed to include a salt bowl and a creamer.

It is gorgeously opulent, with cast fingerprints and handwork reflecting the pair’s obsession with Victorian Gothic. ‘Conie and I are both hugely inspired by the romantic splendour and flamboyant silhouettes of the late 19th century, when craftsmanship was central to design and heightened with a fantastical, dreamlike quality,’ Elhanati confirms.

But there is another, abstract aspect to the ‘Jardin’ designs. ‘The cutlery has the apparent shape of traditional forks and spoons,’ Elhanati says, ‘but a surreal element emerges that makes you look again and question the form, so you might look and ask: “Is it a fork?”, or “What would that fork be used for?”

The pieces are destined to be on display as decorative objects in their own right, but they are, Elahanti promises, ‘absolutely designed to be used’. However, there is a caveat: 'They are definitely not dishwasher friendly,’ she says, smiling.

The ‘Jardin’ homeware collection by Elhanati and Conie Vallese is available to buy at Elhanati