Or: what happens when a Finnish goldsmith stops making jewellery and starts making sculpture you can wear
A torque, structurally, is one of the oldest jewellery forms there is: a rigid, near-circular band worn around the neck, traceable back to Iron Age Europe. What makes this piece remarkable is what Elis Kauppi does with that ancient form. Rather than treating it as a simple hoop, he builds it as a substantial, sculptural silver structure set with labradorite, the stone that shows a shifting flash of blue and green depending on the angle of light, and turns a genuinely old idea into something that reads as pure 1960s Scandinavian modernism.
Why this is a step beyond his other work in this collection. Kauppi’s pendants and rings, several of which are elsewhere in this collection, show his kinetic and structural instincts at a relatively modest scale. A torque this substantial is a different proposition entirely, more silver, more engineering, more physical presence on the body. It’s the kind of piece a designer makes when they’ve fully mastered the smaller forms and want to see how far the same ideas scale up.
Why labradorite, specifically. The stone’s shifting colour play, known as labradorescence, rewards exactly the kind of bold, structural setting Kauppi favoured. A small stone in a delicate setting would waste the effect; a substantial cabochon set into serious silverwork lets the colour genuinely move as the wearer does, which ties directly back to Kauppi’s broader interest in jewellery that responds to motion rather than sitting inert.
What to look for. The labradorescence should shift visibly as the piece is turned in the light, a flat, static-looking stone is a sign of a lower grade of material. This one shows the effect clearly.
This piece has since sold. It was part of a small, genuinely personal collection of mid-century and antique jewellery, gathered over years rather than acquired for resale. See the Kupittaan Kulta torque on Gozotiques.