René Sim Lacaze

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René Sim Lacaze

René Sim Lacaze (born July 27, 1901 in Paris , † January 5, 2000 in Maisons-Laffitte ) was a French jewelry designer and artist. He made a decisive contribution to the development of the European Art Deco style.

life and work

René Lacaze was born in Paris on July 27, 1901. His mother ran a tailoring and fashion studio on Rue d'Alger, where Lacaze got to know and love fashion as a child. With his uncle Armand Bignon he visited numerous museums and discovered his passion for painting there.

A friend of Lacazes told him about his job as a jeweler and the creation of pieces of jewelery set with precious stones such as diamonds . Lacaze saw his calling in this. He began a four-year training course in the Mentel studio in Paris, which worked with the most famous jewelers of the time: Cartier , Boucheron , Ancoc and Janésich .

In 1921 he had to interrupt his training to do his military service. After 26 months in the Air Force near Bourges, where he was employed as a cartographer, he returned to Paris and introduced himself to the great jewelers of Rue de la Paix and Place Vendôme.

In 1923 Lacazes started working for Van Cleef & Arpels, where his extraordinary talent for drawing was soon recognized. Together with Renée Rachel Puissant, Alfred van Cleef's daughter, he took over the artistic and creative management of Van Cleef & Arpels in 1926. During this time, well-known pieces of jewelry such as the Minaudière and the technique of the "serti invisible" were created, with which gemstones can be set without visible claws .

In June 1928 Lacaze married his wife Simone, with whom he had four children. As Lacaze explains in his unpublished biography, this year he added the first syllable of his wife's first name to his name: from now on he called himself René Sim Lacaze.

In 1941 Lacazes stopped working for Van Cleef & Arpels. From then on he worked for Mauboussin and also ran his own jewelry studio . He created jewelry for Marlene Dietrich , Michèle Morgan , Maurice Chevalier and the Duchess of Windsor.

In retirement, from 1968, Lacaze devoted himself entirely to painting and created numerous watercolors. He died on January 5th, 2000 at the age of 99.

Today, René Sim Lacaze is the godfather of the online jeweler RenéSim, which was founded in 2010 by Lacaze's grandson Maximilian Hemmerle and his business partner Georg Schmidt-Sailer.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Renée Puissant & René Sim Lacaze. Van Cleef & Arpels, accessed November 24, 2018.
  2. ↑ tradition. RenéSim, accessed November 24, 2018.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lacaze, René Sim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French jewelry designer
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 2000
Place of death Maisons-Laffitte