Lalique is named after the French glass designer Rene Jules Lalique. He was one of the pioneers in designing perfume bottles, vases, jewelry, chandeliers, clocks etc. He was born on 06 April 1860 in a village in France named Ay and passed away from this world on 05 May 1945.
He started a firm of glassware that he had named after himself and is one of the iconic brands in the glassware department. He also specialized in designing hoods of the automobiles, and the experts are of the view that it was owing to his initiative that the hoods of the automobiles got a neat look.
Design and art form was his passion and he spent his childhood learning about them. The experience that he gathered by learning the design and art forms, he utilized them in production of glassware when he set up his own factory. His family had moved to Paris when he was two years of age from Ay, but they returned to the village during the summer holidays.
This trip from Paris to Ay and back was a valuable learning experience for him and by observing the forms of nature in the early nineteenth century around Paris, he used those forms in an innovative way in the glassware that he created. When he was fourteen years of age his father passed away, and Lalique started doing an apprenticeship with a goldsmith. It was the apprenticeship at the goldsmith that must have honed his skills to attain finesse in the glass forms as well. He also studied for two years in Sydenham Art College London, after attending evening classes at Ecole Des arts decoratifs in Paris.
It was while studying at the Sydenham Arts College that he was able to hone his skills in graphic design and it also further refined his approach to naturalistic art. After finishing his course in London when he returned to Paris, he became a freelance jewel designer for the French jewelers of the likes of Cartier, Boucheron and more of the ilk. As the nineteenth century started getting shape, he came into his own and emerged as the pioneer Art Nouveau jewelry designer from France. He could reach this point on account of the fact that from 1885 he had opened his own studio and had started working on his ideas and giving them a definite shape. When the new shop of Samuel Bing, Maison de l'Art Nouveau was opened in Paris, it was Lalique who was bestowed with the honor of adoring it with his innovative creation. After that he never looked back and his name became a brand identity, characterized by quality, aesthetics, creativity and beauty.
Lalique's pieces of creation were dominated by the forms of natural vegetation, which was an influence from his Ay days and it became his signature statement. His style was known as Art Deco style. It was through his magical work that even a frog became an item worth collecting and adoration. He was able to merge the craft of a jeweler, an artist and a glass maker into one comprehensive unit and create forms which were pulsating with energy. There was an element of dynamism in his design. His e-store is going to open shortly that would increase his outreach to different parts of the world.
Explore the latest collection of Lalique antiques and glass work.
