Hong Kong-based luxury house Sauvereign is carving out a latest category of accessories — “wearable sculptural ornaments” — that may function a brooch, a belt buckle, a pendant, or be clipped onto its classic shoes and purses.

Founder Bertrand Mak collaborates with an array of specialty ateliers in Europe and Asia, and brings to the table a proprietary gold-leaf technique that he first began developing on shoe heels back when he was in partnership with British designer Rupert Sanderson in Asia.

Adding one other layer of narrative to Sauvereign, Mak collaborates with an array of artistic types, having already done projects with photographers Wing Shya and Christopher Makos.

His latest dance partner is Studio Putman, the Paris-based interior design agency founded by the late Andrée Putman and run by her daughter Olivia Putman since 2007.

“Art and culture may be very essential to the home and to myself,” Mak explained in a joint interview at Putman’s chic Paris apartment. “We’re having grand masters from everywhere in the world come together, so naturally Olivia is one in every of them.”

The co-branded collection of ornaments — Mak calls them “gems” — is being unveiled this week on the Sauvereign flagship boutique in Hong Kong, with retail prices hovering around $1,500 for gold ones, and limited-edition gemstone versions at $11,225. An exceptional wall mirror goes for $61,250, and a purse-sized iteration around $1,150.

During her storied profession Andrée Putman applied her hand to such diverse projects as sunglasses, jewelry and fragrance — along with the Morgans Hotel in Recent York, Le Bon Marché’s escalators, the offices of the French Fashion Federation and shop interiors for the likes of Barneys Recent York, Bally and Guerlain.  

But this marks the primary time the Putman studio’s output has landed on leather goods, including sleek pumps with off-kilter medallions on the toes bearing a version of the checkerboard technique pioneered by the inside design maven.

Olivia Putman lauded the “modularity” of Sauvereign’s ornaments — which may also be displayed on a shelf or table as a beautifully crafted object. “It’s playful,” she enthused. “It’s very interesting to have something you possibly can mess around with depending in your mood.”

Putman and Mak also said such a flexible object matches in with today’s flight to quality, and away from having an excessive amount of “stuff.” Indeed, the look of a top-handle bag or a pair of pumps changes when a latest ornament is attached.

“It refreshes it,” Mak said, describing luxury as something that endures and may be repaired. “Also in case you take a look at Olivia’s designs or Andrée’s designs today, they’re timeless. And that is what we set out to attain.”

Putman said she could see her mother having fun with the items from the Sauvereign project, given her affection for demonstrative jewelry, sleek heels and her penchant for taking part in around together with her small wardrobe of favorite items.

Mak conscripted a goldsmith in Geneva to understand the ornaments, that are made using white or yellow 18-karat gold, and a specialist in Venice for the large-scale bronze mirror, one square of lapis-lazuli punctuating the golden cubes swarming around it.

The pièce de résistance ornament, dubbed Blue Sapphire, is made with 480 pieces of 24-carat gradient blue sapphire, a taper-cut yellow sapphire and a 10-mm Tahitian pearl.

Studio Putman and Mak share an obsession with finding the very best craftsmen on the planet to understand their designs. Mak, for instance, usually turns to a lacquer house in Kyoto, Japan, founded in 1661.

In tandem with the arrival of the Sauvereign by Studio Putman collection in stores, the partners will mount a retrospective exhibition of iconic designs by Andrée Putman and Olivia Putman at Elements mall in Hong Kong. The event, a part of the annual French May Arts Festival, can even showcase the numerous collaborations the interiors firm did, culminating with the Sauvereign project.

While tie-ups with other brands are par for the course today, Putman’s mother did them because the Nineteen Eighties, teaming with the likes of Cristofle, Lalique, Baccarat, Louis Vuitton, Charles Jourdan and Swarovski.

Founded in 2020, Sauvereign has also created limited-edition chocolates decorated with hand-placed pure gold leaf.