Crystal chandeliers: perspectives on the return of Parisian radiance… crystal fragments light into rainbows, something few materials can do ...
In a recent piece from The New York Times International Edition, the designer Harry Nuriev imagined something unsettling: a world without crystal as he talks about a new exhibition in Paris. Around the same time, Financial Times HTSI noted the unexpected return of chandeliers reappearing in contemporary interiors with magnificent confidence. For me, crystal has never been theoretical, nor decorative, in the purely aesthetic sense. It has always been personal and more than a trend. Crystal is making a comeback. In Paris, crystal has found new meaning. Designers are talking more about presence: a single chandelier rather than a roomful of glitter. Nuriev’s collaboration with Baccarat is about stripping away assumptions of the Palace of Versailles and its hall of crystal chandeliers and asking what crystal can mean for the everyday home in modern times. Crystal is also becoming rare. True crystal, especially hand-cut, requires time, skill, and patience to create, and many historic ateliers have closed or reduced production due to the rise of modern manufacturing. Artisanship is no longer passed down as it once was. Crystal did not disappear; it became unfashionable. Minimalistic decor stripped interiors of ornament: the crystal chandelier is too ornate, too reminiscent of another era, they say. But now, crystal returns, not as excess, classy glassy, or luxury. Its elegance is restrained. Yet it continues to do what it always has done. Crystal responds to light and movement. It does something few materials can: it holds light and fragments it into rainbows. A small rainbow prism on a windowsill can transform an ordinary morning into something briefly extraordinary. My relationship with crystal began long before I understood any of this. It began with my mother, Christel. She is gone now, but crystal remains one of the ways I continue to encounter her as a living presence in light. I do not imagine a world without them because I have built a small world of crystals around me. They sit on windowsills, on tables, clustered in bowls or as a singular piece. When the sun enters the apartment, the crystals cast fragments of rainbow hues across walls, books, and my computer. These moments are fleeting but beautiful. I keep crystals around me because they do something words cannot fully do. They make memories visible. They allow me to experience my mother not only in recollection, but in shifting moments of light and colour. There is comfort in that. To imagine a world without crystal is, perhaps, to imagine a world without reflection. For designers, crystal may be returning as material. For me, it never left. It is Paris, the City of Light. It is my mother, still finding ways to enter the room.
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