“It should be possible to hang up the washing while wearing my jewellery”: Tracing back the timeless timepieces of Torun

To Swedish silversmith Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe, known simply as Torun, time itself was the enemy. Her most notable challenge to chronography emerged in 1962, when the already lauded jeweller was asked to design an "object of dislike" for the "Antagonism II" exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. The result was the now-iconic Vivianna Bangle watch; a silver bangle that wraps around the wrist with a polished, numberless dial to mirror the viewer – audaciously simple and stripped of all but the bare essentials, featuring a single hand indicating the seconds tick-tick-ticking along. "The relentlessness of time is what I abhor," Torun stated in Ann Westin’s book Torun. "So I designed a watch with no numbers to be an ornament, not a chronometer."

When Georg Jensen began collaborating with Torun in 1967, this design evolved into the brand's first watch released in 1969, integrating hour and minute hands to accommodate conventional timekeeping needs. Paula Gerbase, the current creative director at Georg Jensen, admires two archival pieces in particular as examples of Torun’s perspective. “They’re timepieces where the watch face is hidden under voluminous stones to obstruct the viewer's ability to read the time accurately,” she says, noting how the designs suggest that Torun viewed time and timekeeping as concepts to be approached with fluidity rather than rigidity.

Torun’s life was as non-conformist as her designs. Born in 1927 in Malmö, Sweden, she actively participated in the Danish resistance during World War II and crossed the Øresund strait by sailboat for the Copenhagen Victory celebrations. There, she became pregnant by a Danish journalism student, whom she wedded before the child arrived. But the couple never lived together and post-war, Torun eschewed societal norms, moving to Stockholm with her newborn daughter at just 18 to pursue a degree at Konstfack.

Related: Every Nordic jewellery brand you need to know

In Stockholm, Torun struggled to make ends meet. The luxury tax on silver was so prohibitive at the time that she turned to wood, brass, rattan and other less expensive materials scavenged in Konstfack’s furniture department. Sitting in the park with her daughter, the designer wove Africa-inspired rattan collars, which caught the eye of Estrid Eriksson at Svenskt Tenn. They were soon sold by the prestigious store – the ultimate stamp of approval. “Torun’s work by its very nature challenges perceptions of beauty and value through her use of river stones, wire settings – which are almost imperceptible – and an almost primitive expression in certain pieces,” Gerbase says.

At 20 years old, Torun married her second husband, a French architect, and together they had a son, Claude. That same year, the artist travelled to France, where she met Pablo Picasso while collecting pebbles on a Riviera beach and mingled at cafes with the likes of George Braque, Constantin Brâncuși and Henri Matisse.

It was during this influential trip that she formulated her design philosophy, rejecting the creation of jewellery meant solely for the wealthy elite. Instead, she envisioned what she called "anti-status jewellery" designed for everyday wear using twisted silver wire, crystals and stones. Speaking about the women she wanted to design for, Torun commented that, “I thought women should be independent, and be able to work.” She envisioned her designs worn by the young women working in Paris, who wouldn’t have to travel home in order to change for the evening. “They could simply take off their day-time jacket, have a top underneath, add a smart pendant to their silver necklace, put on earrings and be ready to go out,” she said.