Castellane's fearless use of bright colors on gold is part of her subversive appeal in the conservative world of French luxury jewelry. One would have to start from 'gaudy' and work up a new lexicon to do justice to the toxic splashes of her fermenting microfollies. What the pieces lack in scale, they make up for with an overabundance of formal twists and colorful turns, born of excessive craftsmanship. The extensive use of lacquers, matt or gloss, sparkles, real or fake, texture, grainy, veinous, crinkled, on the clenched folds of her vegetation keeps the eye in a perpetual state of gasp. It fascinates and petrifies, as only such a concentration of effects can. It is, in short, spectacular craft.
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