Book Review: Wallace Chan: Dream Light Water
With the September 2015 release of “A Heritage in Bloom,” the world’s most expensive diamond necklace, Chinese jewelry designer Wallace Chan returned to center stage. The exquisite necklace showcases the 104.27 ct D-color, internally flawless Cullinan Heritage diamond, together with 23 D–IF stones cut from the same rough, pink diamonds, white diamonds of different sizes, mutton-fat nephrite jade, and green jadeite. The piece is considered a milestone for Chow Tai Fook, the world’s largest jewelry retailer; it also symbolizes a new height of his design career, a path outlined in the recently released Wallace Chan: Dream Light Water. Written by Juliet Weir de La Rochefoucauld and Chan himself, the book takes readers on a colorful tour of the designer’s master works over the past 42 years. Through the 86 pieces selected, one reaches a better understanding of Chan’s life and design philosophy.
Following the title of the book, the authors start with dreams and the theme of butterflies. Zhuan Zi, founder of the Taoist philosophy, had a dream of being transformed into a butterfly. When he woke up, he realized it was a dream yet wondered whether it was him becoming a butterfly or the other way around. While every entry in the book of Zhuangzi has a philosophical point, this has been one of the most widely cited. The story also carries the essential spirit of Taoism, which is simply that all objects in nature are just different forms of one single entity. Unlike Confucianism, Taoism treasures the pursuit of freedom, which was valued by many scholars throughout history and is becoming more popular today. By adopting butterflies as the theme in many of his jewelry pieces, Chan is attempting to free himself and the wearer from the complications of the internal and external world. The butterfly is also one of the themes best suited to colored gems.
Originally a carver, Chan has devoted most of his energies to the application of carving to jewelry manufacture. In working with transparent colored gems, he is dedicated to better displaying the interaction between light, gem, and viewer. Over the years, he continued perfecting his manufacturing skills and innovated many patented techniques, with the “Wallace Cut” as the best example. This special cut perfectly combines the medieval cameo with intaglio carving to generate a three-dimensional trompe l’oeil effect. As Chan has said, he lives and breathes light. This is vividly illustrated by many master works in this book. The cover features the pendant of his “Now and Always” necklace. The center stone is a piece of aquamarine fashioned as a Wallace Cut. A single Goddess’s face was carved on the back of the stone in intaglio, and the likeness was reflected by the different facets of the stone to create this “goddess with a thousand faces” effect.
Chan notes at the end of the book that when he works, his creativity flows out of him like water. With its gentle strength, flexibility, and eternal tenacity, flowing water is the highest standard of human behavior in Chinese culture. Fitting in with other people, the environment, and nature is the best way to live. With this in mind, Chan broke the barrier between East and West, between old and new. Through hard work and manufacturing expertise, he invented techniques to set colored gems into jade and create a lit-from-within effect. “Plum Flowers in Snow,” “Tender Is My Skin,” and “A Heritage in Bloom” are the best examples.
The book is artistically designed, featuring jewelry pieces shown with different angles and special effects to elaborate the details. Looking at these images, it is like gradually zooming in and unveiling the secrets hidden by the designer. Today, Wallace Chan remains completely involved in every step of jewelry making in his business. He believes that while the innovation of manufacture techniques and skills comes from diligent research, continuous experimentation, and daily practice, a humble mind and tenacity are the keys to his stature as a leading jewelry designer. As he puts in the book: “Creativity starts with emptiness and the unknown.”
Overall, Wallace Chan: Dream Light Water is a very engaging experience, as well as a rich source of inspiration for professional jewelry designers and collectors.
