Cultural Suplement

The eminence gris of modern Dutch jewellery, Hans Appenzeller, turns out to be a rather boyish 40-year-old with an infectious grin. He laughs at the idea: “I’ve still got so much to learn, so much to do and the idea of being some kind of grand old man implies you’ve done it all.”

Hans Appenzeller has already done a lot. He was one of the prime movers behind the revolution in design that attacked and ultimately overthrew the bastions of staid, conventional jewellery in the late Sixties. “That may be true, but all we did was apply to design what was happening in just about every other discipline – painting, sculpture, and so on. I was at the Rietveld Academy at the time and I thought jewellery should be exciting, a challenge to both the maker and the wearer. My work then was definitely radical, a statement.