The New Surrealism: Jewellery’s Return to Dreams, Play and Illusion

This March, the ‘Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art’ exhibition opened at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, reintroducing audiences to Elsa Schiaparelli’s surreal world of illusion, fantasy and visual trickery. The iconic Tears dress designed with Salvador Dalí sits alongside canonical Surrealist artworks and jewels, including a pinecone choker created by Jean Schlumberger for Schiaparelli. Surrealism is back on the agenda, and it is no longer confined to the museum.

Over the past year, the centenary of Surrealism has been marked by exhibitions around the world, including the major travelling show ‘Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100’, prompting renewed interest in the movement. Writing in The Art Newspaper, art market reporter Anna Brady notes that Surrealism has become a “hot spot” in an otherwise subdued market. More than a century after André Breton’s manifesto first defined the movement, jewellery, too, is revisiting Surrealism’s fascination with dream logic and distorted forms.