Jaoven Ricoeur is experiencing something that a lot of us do at one time or another: Moving forward in life, yes, but at the same time, feeling a yearning for the past—for where you came from. In Ricoeur’s case, that means his upbringing in rural southern France, where his father made jewelry, something he’s also now doing—and very good it is, too: Lyrical and sculptural on an intimate scale, it evokes both the sunniness of where he grew up—quite literally, sometimes, as with a golden ring etched with solar rays—yet there’s also something of the abstracted, two-dimensional facial forms of Pablo Picasso’s ceramics, along with organic and graphic Vallauris pottery. A touch of Jean Cocteau too, though Ricoeur’s interest really lies in Cocteau’s life and creative partner, Jean Marais. And all this while living in Paris and working as global manager of celebrities and influence for Givenchy. (And no, I didn’t ask him about who might be taking over as creative director at the house; we were strictly chatting about his bijoux.)
“I watched my father craft jewelry my whole life,” Ricoeur says, “and I’d studied art before going into communications. And just before COVID, as much as I really, really love my job, I was thinking how I missed making—that you have an idea in your head, use your hands to create it, and then have the final product in front of you. I was looking for that sense of fulfillment.” With the free time the pandemic afforded him, Ricoeur started making ceramics—buying the clay, messing around with it, seeing what was possible and how he could stretch himself creatively. “It was amazing reconnecting with that part of myself,” he says. “And my Dad was really happy to see me doing it.”
As Ricoeur’s birthday approached a couple of years ago, he asked his father to make him a necklace. “Not to say that thing everyone always says,” he says, laughing, “but I could never find what I wanted, so I decided to design it myself. But really it was about more than that: I wanted to wear something that connected me and my dad.” Ricoeur senior was up for it, with one caveat: He’d make the pendant, but his son had to not only design it, but carve the wax to make the mold too. Which he did, sending a tiny sculpture in the shape of a smiling face, which then became his piece of jewelry.
When Ricoeur started wearing the necklace, people noticed, asked him where he got it—and then, yes, he started to work with his father to make them as one-off commissions for his immediate circle of friends and, before long, his Instagram circle of friends. (Jewelry from Jaoven Ricoeur is available to buy via @jaoven.) Over the course of 18 months, he says, he added sun and moon designs, which he’d already been exploring with his ceramics. The sun, he realized, was very similar to one his artist mother had painted on the wall behind his bed in his childhood bedroom.
There’s no branding on his silver and gold vermeil necklaces, charms and rings, which is deliberate: Ricoeur wants to maintain the idea that this is “a passion project—it’s not being made for commercial considerations. I want the jewelry to be what it is, not sugarcoat it into something else—just to do it all organically.” That’s precisely the appeal of Ricoeur’s work: It feels super personal and intrinsic to who he is; it’s almost talismanic, and it has a timeless, ageless and genderless quality that’s special.
Now Ricoeur’s tapping into another kind of power—astrology—with a horoscope-inspired range of signs charms, with representations of the twelve symbols. He’s mindful that he’s treading on familiar territory, and understands the importance of telling the story of each of the signs in a way that relies on a thoughtful gesture of line without being reductive. “I want to do it my way,” he says. “I want every sign to be representative of the way I see it—I’m always asking my friends, ‘What’s it like to be your sign?’” (Design-wise, he says, Virgo, with its traditional representation as a maiden, was the most challenging—grappling with how one could make that work however you identified your gender. Also rather tricky to design was Scorpio. Hmm, need we say more?)
Ricoeur’s interest in astrology sprang from his gloriously free-spirited and hippified upbringing on his parent’s farm—no running water, no electricity—where his mom used to read his chart. His own sign, he thinks, comes into play with the duality of his life now, being a double Gemini: Gemini sun, Gemini rising. “There’s a lot of storytelling about my sign,” he says, “and it’s really kind of who I am: very versatile and able to adapt to any kind of environment.”