Jewelry by Dominique Favey Blackmore [Photo provided to China Daily]

Very few sculptors are able to master the former technique, which starts by making a plaster mould around a wax model; the mould is then heated to around 800°C. The wax melts and runs out, and molten metal is poured into the empty space that remains. Once the whole thing has cooled, the plaster is broken and the metal piece is removed, cleaned and chiselled.

Blackmore is also one of the few jewellers to work pieces of antique lace into her creations. "I incorporate them into my wax models, then I cast them in bronze, silver or gold with the lost-wax technique," she explains.

Pieces are generally one-of-a-kind, though some are made in a limited series of no more than eight. Most of her loyal customers have the privilege of discovering the latest collection before everyone else, through an exclusive preview at the jeweller's Paris workshop.

What's ahead for Blackmore? "The 2018 collection will be very much about the sea, with lots of seashell prints for the lost-wax pieces and crustaceans for the welded metal ones," she confides.

Jewellery from this "seafood platter" will go on sale around the end-of-year holiday season at the Artcurial auction house and the Karry Gallery in Paris, and at Peipers & Kojen in New York. Better get in the queue now…