Temple + Hope: with Sevan

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His eclectic rings are not for everyone, and he does not expect everyone to understand either.

Byzantine and Ottoman themes, birds, temples, fruits and animals are hidden among a total fascination for icons, portraits, ornaments and crests admired by Sevan Bicakci as a child growing up in the heart of Turkey.

His description...

''I would describe my designs as Ottoman and Renaissance meet Alice in Wonderland. The look is ancient but with an element of fantasy. There has never been jewelery like this before.''

His dreams...

''I often dream of myself as an Ottoman Sultan -sometimes I am his concubine, sometimes a Byzantine Queen. Istanbul is a great place, and was the capital of the Roman and Ottoman Empires. It has the most wonderful relics from all over the world, which are a true inspiration to me.''

His source of inspiration...

''My designs come from my heart. They are inspired by life, and the world around me, and each piece has a piece of me, etched somewhere deep inside it. Inspired by Istanbul, my greatest muse.''

The 13th Annual Town & Country Couture Design Awards, which is the jewelery industry's most prestigious one, gave Turkish Designer (of Armenian descent) Sevan Bicakci his third win in a row in the category of ''Best in Coloured Gemstone Design''. He has always been admired, and respected by the Couture community since his first show in 2005, which has been proven in his success of having generated the most votes ever received in the Couture Design Competition.

As seen above, Sevan's winning design ''The Temple of Hope'' (Turkish: Umut Dergahi), combined emeralds, multicolored diamonds -white, green, cognac diamonds-, rubies, pink tourmalines, amethysts, topaz, carved bone, mother of pearl, porcelain, and ebony set in 24K yellow and rose gold and sterling silver.

At first, you see a giant mass of color, but looking closer, and then you see the cogs actually turning in his mind as he dreamt up such a piece. Unimaginably beautiful, distinctly exotic and one-of-a-kind! If I say that The piece took almost a year to create. Yes, indeed.

For interested ones, here's his background...

Born in Istanbul in 1972, Sevan dropped out of school at 12. Found a job, where he learnt his craft working together with a skilled and much respected jeweler that he was taught techniques included metal-based painting, engraving, calligraphy, intaglio carving and micro-mosaic setting. They are skills which lend themselves to jewelery designed from the soul rather than technology-aided design.

Today, from his studio in Istanbul's 500-year-old Grand Bazaar, Sevan turns out one-of-a-kind jewels crafted from gold, sterling silver, rose and antique-cut diamonds, and a mix of uniquely-cut gemstones.

With no two creations are same, each piece reflects the distinct Sevan touch in a style that is all its own. Some of Sevan's well-known wearers and collectors include celebrities such as: Elizabeth Hurley, Halle Berry, Catherine Zeta Jones, Kim Raver, Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen, Brooke Shields, Liv Tyler, Celine Dion, Elizabeth Wiatt, Tory Burch.. Recently, Queen Elizabeth was gifted a Sevan Bicakci ring by the Turkish First Lady during a state visit to Turkey. His designs have a universal appeal, and do not miss to check out his website

As very well known in the fine jewelery industry, you can read the full interview of the new ''Lord of The Rings''

Lee Arevian, Pamela Fiori, Sevan Bicakci,

Emre Dilaver, James DeMattei
Awards Ceremony took place at
Wynn, Las Vegas -June 2008

As Baki, one of the greatest lyric poets of the classical period of Ottoman Turkish Literature, said that ''The thing that survives is a pleasant sound under the dome, or in another words; it's better to be remembered by the good words you've spoken, than the bad..''

In Turkish we used to say as follows:

Baki kalan gökkubbede hos bir seda imis.
Baki (1526-1600)