The jewellery designer who walked away from Dior
After shaping the visual language of men’s jewellery at multiple brands, Sophie Calvi stepped off the treadmill to make space for something else.
By Jorinde Croese
Sophie Calvi doesn’t do jewellery the way most people in fashion do jewellery. She’s not the loudest in the room, or the one posting moodboards on Instagram at 3am – but for the past decade, she’s been quietly shaping the aesthetic codes of some of the industry’s biggest houses. At Dior, she worked side-by-side with Kim Jones as menswear jewellery grew from an afterthought into a key pillar of the brand. Before that, she spent time at Givenchy under Riccardo Tisci, and at Kenzo and Margiela. Now, she’s left the safety of in-house life behind – splitting her time between freelance collaborations and a parallel practice in Reiki and Kobido facial massage. We met in London at St Katherine’s Docks to talk about the pressure of performing in a corporate structure, the myth of the all-consuming job, and what happens when you stop trying to be just one thing.
Let’s start from the beginning and your French accent: where did you grow up?
I grew up in the south of France, in Montpellier, a really nice town. It’s about 20 minutes from the sea. I was there for 20 years, and then I moved to Paris. So that was a nice shock, but I was happy to leave.
Where did you study?
I started in Montpellier, and it was more of a graphic design path at first. Then I moved to Paris to study at LISAA; it was more like garment studies. I could already tell it wasn’t really for me. I liked the drawing part, but sewing wasn’t my thing at all. I only did a year and didn’t finish. I went directly into an internship, and that’s how I started. The opportunities just kind of showed up along the way. At Sandro I did a bit of everything, and at Margiela I met Heikki Salonen, who saw I wasn’t into tailoring. He gave me more graphic design and accessory work. I even did some jewellery. That’s when I started to realise I wasn’t really a garment designer. Then I landed an interim role at Givenchy and stayed two and a half years – it was a great but intense learning period.
What were you doing there?
A bit of couture, ready-to-wear jewellery collections, the fashion show pieces – everything. It was a big step. I learned a lot about working with suppliers too, going to Italy. It was the first time for almost everything.
It sounds like it was a very natural transition into accessories and jewellery, but I wonder if at any point you were beating yourself up a bit about it? Sometimes we start down one path, like studying fashion design, and when it doesn’t click, we feel like a failure.
I think at the beginning, yes, I saw myself being more into garments. My sister was doing fashion too; we were even in the same class. And I could tell she had much more capability with certain things, like sewing. She was really good at it, like naturally good. For me, if I had to do all of that – the sewing and all the rest – it would have been really difficult, and it wouldn’t have felt natural at all. I really love drawing, and I feel like I can express myself in Photoshop. And with projects, you can do more of that. So once things started to build a bit, I thought: okay, I feel better in this area. And also, like… Heikki told me, “I think you should do accessories.” Maybe he manifested something for me. It helped me find my path.
How was it for you as a jewellery designer to work directly with a creative director, like Kim Jones? Was it very different across the companies you worked for, or were there similarities?