In Antwerp, ‘Glitter and Glamour’

In the new Diva museum in Antwerp, a dining place installation showcases elaborate examples of silver serving items. The museum is dedicated to diamonds and silverwork plus the background of diamonds in the town.CreditIlvy Njiokiktjien for that Ny Occasions


ANTWERP, Belgium — A Diva laden with diamonds along with other treasured objects created a debut here previous weekend.

It basically was a whole new museum known as Diva. As well as in accurate flamboyant design and style, preparations ran proper up into the opening.

This kind of brinksmanship might seem minor in the town that's been the funds with the diamond trade because 1447. But for town’s leaders and diamond business insiders, the museum’s arrival hasn't arrive a minute far too before long. Although eighty four p.c of the earth’s tough diamonds however handed by in this article past calendar year, Antwerp has noted for awhile that it wanted some more allure to take care of its sector dominance and, notably, to increase its tourism.
One of many museum’s exhibits: a Flemish coronary heart, in diamonds, developed inside the mid-1800s.CreditDominique Provost/All rights reserved DIVA


“For some time the myth, power and magic of diamonds exercised their own pull, Therefore the stones virtually bought on their own,” explained Marcel Pruwer, a diamond service provider and former president in the Antwerp Diamond Bourse. But in recent times this charming, lively port of much more than 520,000 people has viewed investing hubs like Dubai, Hong Kong, Tel Aviv, Mumbai and in some cases neighboring Amsterdam make inroads as diamond facilities.

The diamond trade may have the glamour of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Mr. Pruwer stated, but, he included, “we’ve turn out to be tedious. What we need could be the ingenuity, boldness and guts of the Alessandro Michele,” he stated, referring on the designer at the rear of Gucci’s fabulously thriving revival.

Mr. Pruwer has long been a Main strategist of Antwerp’s Diamond Calendar year celebrations, a number of situations this year intended to give town’s heritage trade extra attention in addition to a lashing of neat. And, for town, the opening on the $20 million Diva museum was the headliner. Much more lengthy-phrase endeavours involve creating a “Diamonds from Antwerp” brand name and working with the Shanghai Diamond Trade on new marketplaces in China.

Diva has an enviable locale, around the corner from city hall and just blocks far from the Rubens-loaded gothic Cathedral of Our Woman. The painter’s grand townhouse is a simple stroll in a single path; in the other is definitely the Scheldt River and the buzzy Outdated Port community of Eilandje, the key point of entry for people from cruise ships and river boats, anchored by the popular MAS metropolis museum.

The museum features a fifteenth-century facade, but at the rear of it really is a contemporary 6-degree composition, renovated given that its before times as museums of folk art and ethnography. Its displays were being culled from your long-lasting collections from the Diamond Museum, which closed in 2012, along with the Sterckshof Silver Museum, shuttered in 2014. There are also parts on long-term bank loan from personal teams such as the King Baudouin Basis.

But its organizers, who commenced engaged on the museum in 2014, realized Diva experienced to provide extra than just dazzling stones to be successful.
The Great Marketplace Sq. in town Heart. Antwerp is attempting to include web-sites that might help it enhance tourism.CreditIlvy Njiokiktjien for your Big apple Moments


“Diva will not be the blingiest museum, but we have lots of glitter and glamour,” stated Jeroen Martens, Diva’s director. “We wanted to produce a layered, additional human practical experience for an exceptionally broad viewers, not simply tradition fans or professionals.”

In contrast to Those people of most modern day museums, Diva’s interior was built to really feel personal, as in the event you ended up going to the house of a rather eccentric aristocratic collector — who just occurred to possess a diamond workroom, a media home as well as a vault.

For the look and Display screen functions, Mr. Martens called on numerous perfectly-recognized Belgians, which include Gert Voorjans, an inside decorator whose customers have involved Mick Jagger and who is understood in fashion circles for producing boutiques for Dries Van Noten. He intended the 1st of your museum’s 6 galleries: an personal wunderkammer, or cupboard of curiosities. During the richly hued staging, objects like an owl cup, made within the mid-16th century of silver along with a carved coconut, the museum’s oldest treasure, discover a counterpoint in a big Οικονομικοι Σταυροι touch-display screen that shows portraits of and by famed Flemish and Belgian artists. Faucet a portrait, as well as display screen reveals illustrations or photos with the artist’s collection. (Since it seems, Rubens was no slouch from the jewellery Division.)

Displays in The cupboard of curiosities, a characteristic developed with the perfectly-regarded Belgian interior designer Gert Voorjans in The brand new Diva museum.CreditIlvy Njiokiktjien to the Ny Times


The opposite five galleries ended up created by Carla Janssen Hofelt, and include a workshop concentrating on diamond cutting, sharpening and location as well as a form of dining area set up showcasing elaborate examples of silver serving items. The Display screen places full a bit more than five,380 sq. toes.

Like Most up-to-date museums, Diva has immersive options: Is it a diamond or cubic zirconia? Can you see the fraud that after fooled a member of your Rothschild family members? And in the ultimate gallery — styled for a boudoir to display jewelry such as the museum’s serpent mascot, a versatile piece in gold, inexperienced enamel and diamonds relationship from 1860 — readers are invited to determine what kind of diva They may be, then test on Digital diamonds for illustrations or photos which might be posted to social media marketing.

A next wave of options, together with lessons, a lending library (a collaboration Along with the MoMU vogue museum in Antwerp ), investigation services and a conservation and restoration atelier are envisioned to open up in September.
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The director from the museum, Jeroen Βαπτιστικοι Σταυροι Με Αλυσιδα Προσφορες Martens, explained it as “a layered, a lot more human encounter for a very broad viewers, not only lifestyle fans or professionals.”CreditIlvy Njiokiktjien for The The big apple Times


Nevertheless, Mr. Martens said, the museum is much more than simply displays and routines, “it’s with regard to the story behind the thing.

“You don’t need fashionable technological innovation to possess an practical experience,” he extra, “but Considering that the functionality is there, we felt we must always use it anywhere we can easily.”

To fill out the storytelling angle, the director and scriptwriter Frank van Laecke created the character of Jerome Legrand, a virtual butler featured on an elaborate audio guide that includes brief plays fusing fact and fiction. For example, 1 Tale is encouraged via the courtesan Violetta from Verdi’s “La Traviata,” and the composer Steven Prengels was enlisted to riff on “The Jewel Music” from Gounod’s “Faust.”
The museum shop.CreditIlvy Njiokiktjien for your New York Situations
Impression
The museum shop.CreditIlvy Njiokiktjien for The Big apple Moments

On Could 1, 3 days ahead of the official opening, the museum was crammed with staff. Exhibits ended up nevertheless being positioned, complex teams ended up adjusting lights and ladders, boxes and cables ended up scattered around Χειροποιητοι Βαπτιστικοι Σταυροι Για Κοριτσι the flooring.

In the multipurpose Emerald Area, a bar stood ready to the fifty seven-hour opening marathon (1 hour For each side on a brilliant-Reduce diamond, you realize). This system was to include all-night time D.J.s, tattoo artists, a diamond escape sport and also a workbench primed for a diamond-reducing session that organizers hoped would set the 1st Guinness World Document of its sort.

Diva organizers claimed the museum experienced about five,000 company over the opening weekend, and that the interactive features were specifically common. It now's open up to the public day-to-day, other than Wednesdays, with tickets at 10 euros, or $12, for adults.

Along with its raconteur approach to conveying diamonds and important metallic operate, Diva has actually been striving to advertise nearby artisans and diamond retailers in its retail Procedure. The museum retailer, which opened in December, provides rhinestone-topped pencils (€two), regionally produced Diva gin and jewellery from regional designers (from €35).

Silvius Druon, the loved ones-operate diamond organization in charge of the shop, has expanded into jewelry-generating for patrons looking for much larger parts. There are also smaller, Licensed loose diamonds starting at several hundred euros Each individual and rings with half-carat solitaires at Χειροποιητοι Βαπτιστικοι Σταυροι Για Κοριτσι €two,four hundred to Βαπτιστικοι Σταυροι €3,000.

Along with the museum, as part of the town’s exertion to market itself like a clear and moral place to trade in diamonds, is providing a absolutely free brochure of what it phone calls “Antwerp’s Most Brilliant,” a list of neighborhood jewelers whose operations are audited by town authorities. Many them are highlighted in the first problem of Diva’s in-residence magazine.

“Ultimately, we're a museum of stories,” Mr. Martens mentioned. “Owning enjoyment is what brilliant Reminiscences are all about.”