Paris-based designer Sophie Hoehlinger combines crystal healing with Place Vendôme craftsmanship in her raw-gem masterpieces.
Gem dealers are used to designers seeking exceptional stones for their creations, but Sophie Hoehlinger surprised the most seasoned traders by asking for crystals she could leave uncut — an unusual request for a high-jewelry collection.
After 20 years working in healthcare and having developed a passion for alternative medicine, the Paris-based newcomer to the jewelry scene decided to launch her own brand, Hoehl’s, in 2019, because she couldn’t find wellness jewels she loved.
“You can buy raw stones, but they cannot be used as a really nice jewel. On one hand, you have the high jewelry, and on the other hand, you have all the raw stones, but it’s not beautiful to wear,” she says.
So she set out to use her knowledge of lithotherapy — crystal healing — to create luxurious pendants that work on the different chakras, or energy points in the body.
Luxury in balance
Hoehlinger worked with designer Frédéric Mané and the Jothi-Sèroj high-jewelry workshop on Place Vendôme to release a collection that would improve the wearer’s sense of harmony, creativity, energy, appeasement and protection, depending on the chosen stone.
To enhance the inherent beauty of the crystals, Mané drew elegant diamond-set mountings that symbolize the stone’s therapeutic virtues and gently encase the star of the show: a raw aquamarine, tanzanite, opal, emerald, topaz or tourmaline.
Hoehlinger sees her work as more than bringing wellness to high jewelry; it’s also a showcase for French jewelry-making, as the pieces are technically complicated to create. It’s a balance between ensuring the gems are securely held and don’t break, and still keeping the setting light.
“I am so passionate about this high craftsmanship. It was very important to me that we could highlight the French know-how in jewelry,” she says.
Selecting the right stones
Hoehlinger grew up in the east of France and jokes that her family name predestined her to have an interest in gemstones, as “hoehle” is the German word for cave — that dark place from which stones are unearthed and their radiance brought to the surface. As a child, she used to visit a good friend of her grandmother’s, a local jeweler, and started collecting crystals when she was seven. Picking gems became more challenging as she moved from amateur collector to professional jewelry designer.
“Selecting the stones was the hardest part of the project,” Hoehlinger says. “I started with a book selecting some stones, but real life is much more difficult, because some of the raw stones are not really beautiful [enough] to be on a necklace. I decided to use only crystals, because naturally they are really beautiful. I wanted to highlight the beauty of nature.”
It took her a year to source the specimens for her jewelry line, visiting specialist fairs in Tucson, Arizona, and Munich, Germany (in pre-Covid-19 times). All the stones in the collection are at least 6 on the Mohs scale of hardness, part of her effort to combine external beauty with strength and sustainability. Her treatment of the crystals met with a warm reception from her suppliers when they saw the finished pieces, a celebration of nature’s power to soothe and heal.
Main image: Sophie Hoehlinger. (Hoehl’s)
