We share a lot about the inspiration behind Macabre Gadgets jewelry, but what about the inspiration behind our editorials and campaigns? What do these projects mean to us, and how do we see them?
From our very first editorial, they became our own canvas, our way of sharing how we see and feel the world. Our fascination with the visual arts only makes them more thrilling and complex. We've been inspired by oil paintings, sculpture, architecture, theatre, and sometimes all at once. When we're creating jewelry, we're creating mythology. With our campaigns, we're finding ways to share it on a larger scale.
Gods and Monsters
Before Greek myths became marble, they were drawings. Painted on amphorae, goblets, and oil lamps, gods and monsters inhabited the ordinary objects of everyday life. Gods and Monsters explores this forgotten world of terracotta, black figures, and ancient stories—where the familiar myths of antiquity first took shape.
Arrow and Iris
This is our most unique editorial – no hands wearing rings or necks adorned with chokers, no models at all. A paper-cut stop-motion animation created for a small capsule collection: a quiet scene in a meadow full of irises, where we stumble upon a motionless pheasant struck by an arrow.
Storm
Almost a decade later, after "Ghost," we came back to explore the subject of Rococo and its hidden darkness. Storm is a surreal story blending times and places, about beauty, witchcraft and the power of nature. Compared to the airy Ghost, it feels "heavily perfumed", infused with the scents of late summer blooms.
For Storm, we drew inspiration from the paintings of Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, the gloomy, intimidating English countryside, 18th-century French paper theatres, and modern anime and fashion.
Florent
This is the only editorial that is not tied to any particular collection – we were simply impressed by a piece of Ancient Roman political propaganda turned into myth centuries later: the myth of Emperor Elagabalus and a banquet full of flowers.
In a banqueting-room with a reversible ceiling he once buried his guests in violets and other flowers, so that some were actually smothered to death, being unable to crawl out to the top.
(Historia Augusta, Life of Elagabalus)
In the late 19th century, an enormous oil painting was created – The Roses of Heliogabalus, painted by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. It depicts a crushing wave of pink petals filling the space, with noble Romans trying to crawl out from beneath the flowers.
Our editorial was exactly that – a heavily bejeweled hands sinking into pink waters filled with flowers and petals.
Faun
The subject was particularly familiar to us – the key character in Ancient Greek and Roman mythology. A wild forest creature without any boundaries, the constant companion of the god Dionysus, always down for a fun time. Soft by nature but with sharp horns. We wanted to show it not strictly from a classical point of view but place it in the Macabre Gadgets world as a creature with its own story and mythology.
Our Faun became a representation of nature above all. Covered in gentle flowers, almost blending in with the surroundings. But is it hiding to avoid or to prey – that's for you to decide.
Eclipse Lunaire
It is a small capsule collection celebrating a lunar eclipse. Large statement jewelry with heavy pearls, like celestial bodies, shimmering in the dark. The beauty and the mysticism of this event needed no interpretation from us. The editorial itself was almost completely black – blurry faces of the models, cold silver and pearls on the velvety black background of the night sky.
Siren
The last part of the triptych, the most feral creature of all three.
One might become a ghost or even a vampire, but for a siren – there are no shortcuts, you have to be born one.
When we turned to this topic, we considered a lot of visuals – from Ancient Greek half-human, half-bird creatures to the familiar mermaids brushing their hair in ghostly underwater castles.
In the end, our siren became something completely different. The tropical waters of the Indian Ocean gave us a powerful ancient creature. Dripping in glistening silver jewelry and large gleaming pearls, it doesn't look ceremonial; it is part of a mighty ancient tribe – hypnotizing, but extremely dangerous.
Vampire
The middle part of the triptych. A relentless creature with rich mythology and even richer representation. In contrast to our Ghost, absolutely indifferent to passing centuries, we wanted to portray a vampire as an ancient creature with "time awareness." We shot this editorial over a few days, at dawn, to show the exhausted but breathtakingly beautiful vampire dragging herself to the safety of her coffin after yet another night of hunting on unfriendly modern streets.
The unearthly beauty of Flamboyant Gothic architecture, striking medieval fashion, the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, and the peculiar armor of dark knights – these are the inspiration behind the Vampire editorial.
Ghost
We wanted to make viewers feel not only the eeriness of the ghost but also the hypothetical loneliness of the soul being left on its own for hundreds of years, moreover to find comfort in it. Our Ghost is not a dramatic howling spirit with painful unfinished business scaring mortals – it is a mischievous, witty and extremely narcissistic phantom. It doesn't care if you're scared or not, as long as you're impressed with its otherworldly beauty and dazzling jewelry.
The mood board for this editorial was cold and airy. Alexander Roslin's paintings, full of silvery-grey palettes, extremely ornamental wooden panels from the Petit Trianon painted in soft blue, and the melancholic beauty of the North Sea coast.