Fred Samuel, who founded the jewellery house Fred in Paris in 1936, counted renowned screen stars, society darlings and artists of his day—such as Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Hutton and Pablo Picasso—among his close acquaintances and clientele. Now, the Maison continues that brilliant association with contemporary celebrities: actors Dew Jirawat and Yang Mi are counted among the friends of the brand, Wonyoung from the K-pop group IVE was named Fred’s Korea ambassador in September 2022, and now Jin from the boyband BTS and Chinese actress Guan Xiaotong have been named the Maison’s global brand ambassadors.
Fresh from his military discharge, all eyes were on BTS vocalist Jin when he made his first official appearance for Fred as a torch bearer at the Paris Olympics, wearing almost exclusively pieces from its signature Force 10 collection and single-handedly bringing renewed focus to the jeweller’s iconic motif.
The maison’s strongest pillar, the Force 10 came into being in 1966. Samuel noticed his son Henri transforming a modest braid of sailing cables and a snap hook into a handmade bracelet for his wife, and Samuel recreated that concept with twisted steel threads and a gold clasp, reminiscent of sturdy ropes and horseshoe-shaped bow shackles found on sailing boats. He named the bracelet in reference to the Beaufort wind force scale, an estimate of wind strength on a scale of 0 to 12, with force 10 denoting a storm.
Samuel might not have expected the transformative impact his genderless sports jewellery would bring. The distillation of his love of the sun, the sea, sailing, and the balmy energy of his native Buenos Aires and the French Riviera, Force 10 took a rugged, quotidian inspiration and made it a precious expression of audacity and optimism, while retaining a relaxed air. In the years since, the Force 10 collection has grown to encompass bracelets, earrings, necklaces, rings, and even eyewear, with buckle motifs in varying dimensions, crafted from different metals, set with a dizzying array of gemstones, and paired with woven cable cords in colours that span the entire visible spectrum.
And more recently, Force 10 has diversified into more specialised ranges. In 2021, Fred launched the Force 10 Winch line of rings, earrings, necklaces and bracelets intended for men, dedicated to exhibiting the beauty of the braided cable, resembling rope wound around a winch on a sailboat, like thread on a spool. The following year, a high-jewellery interpretation of Force 10 appeared in the Monsieur Fred Inner Light collection as the Force 10 Winning Spirit bangle, with an oversized buckle cut from a single aquamarine, laid atop diamonds.
Introduced in 2023, the Roland Garros capsule edition of Force 10 features bright orange in the woven cables and a mandarin garnet on the buckle, an homage to the clay tennis courts of the French Open, while the Happy Blue Shades edition released last summer reimagined the four main collections of the maison—Force 10, Chance Infinie, Pain de Sucre, Pretty Woman—with blue gemstones of increasing intensity, from aquamarines to blue topaz to sapphires. And now, the latest iterations of Force 10 includes mid-jewellery double-strand necklaces in yellow gold or white gold and set with brilliant-cut white diamonds, in addition to large model bracelets and single earrings with the same interpretation—a scintillating suite befitting the maison renowned as the Sunshine Jeweller.
Photography: Jaya Khidir
Art Direction: Marisa Xin
Photography Assistants: Ng Ming and Syed Abdullah
This story first appeared in the September issue of GRAZIA Singapore.
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