Designer: Vivianna T. Bülow-Hübe
Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe (1927 – 2004) was born in Malmö Sweden. She graduated from the Academy of Industrial Arts in Stockholm in 1945 and in 1956 she settled in Paris where she quickly became known for her jewellery. Torun’s designs have become legendary and are exhibited at several museums worldwide including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Torun was philosophical about the role of design in our everyday lives:
“A piece of jewellery should be a symbol of love. It should enhance and move with the body so that it blends with you. It must not overwhelm, but enhance you. This is why it must be timeless. It shouldn’t matter if you are 17 or 87 years old.”
One of the most iconic watch design classics in the Georg Jensen watch collection is the Vivianna bangle watch. Torun once reflected back on her inspiration for the bangle watch:
“Then watches were only chronometers – measurers of time, which one got constantly caught out by. I wanted to free people form the slavery of time, I wanted to make a watch which reminded one that life is here and now, so I created a watch with a mirror face, no numbers and a simple second hand. A watch should not make us prisoners of time–but liberate us. Perhaps it is possible to make a timepiece which more intensely perceives the Here and Now. The watch is open ended to symbolize that time should not bind us, and the dial like a mirror reminds us that life is now.”
In keeping with the Georg Jensen tradition of innovation, Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe set out to reinvent the very concept of time.
