Kwiat

Advertising & Illustration

Synonymous with high quality and utter refinement, Kwiat has been a trusted name in jewelry for more than a century. Timeless elegance and world-class craftsmanship have given this brand its immutable position in the luxury market, beloved by Hollywood actors and society’s elite. This fourth generation, family-owned New York business is known for being on trend, while remaining respectful of their heritage. We were tasked with creating evergreen imagery to establish the brand as a modern classic.

An effective lifestyle jewelry campaign necessitates an intriguing, aspirational story while highlighting the small products that tend to get overshadowed. Typically solved by featuring an image of a model tightly cropped at the hips, we chose to shift the sense of scale between the monochrome paintings of the model and the jewelry, creating an artful expression of elegance reflective of Kwiat’s history and caliber. A huge ring substitutes as a bridal bouquet; an earring becomes an oversized evening bag, a necklace becomes a sweeping shawl draped over the shoulder..

 Hollywood’s silver screen era served as our inspiration: we studied quintessential fashion icons from the 1940s, 50s and 60s such as Lisa Fonssagrives, Dovima, Veruschka, and Jean Shrimpton, selecting imagery to be translated by gifted watercolor artist Holly Houk. Once we had our background figures painted, we photographed them with a low, rakinglight to capture the delicacy of the pigments and texture of the watercolor paper. We then shot multiple images in several depths of field for each piece of jewelry, digitally merging them to capture the sparkle, detail and depth of the gems.Engraving the Kwiat logo in silver and embossing it directly onto the watercolor paper lent the campaign a certain richness. We photographed the raised logo in a low light with a cast shadow, capturing the dimensionality of the layers.

 Merging the watercolor paintings, textured paper, stacked-focus jewelry images and embossed logo into final compositions, each appears as a seamless, sophisticated lifestyle image with oversized products in glorious detail.