Louis Aurelis
Founded above a watchmaker's shop on rue de Grenelle by a goldsmith who refused to call himself a designer.
Aurelis is not a brand. It is a bench, a notebook, and the hands of five generations of goldsmiths who have asked the same simple question every morning since 1898 — what can be made today that will outlive us all.
A house, page by page
The maison is founded
Louis Aurelis opens a one-room workshop on rue de Grenelle. The first ledger records six engagement rings and a single private commission.
The first archive book
After a quarter-century, the maison binds its first archive of drawings — three hundred sketches, signed only with year and bench number.
The atelier moves
After the war, the workshop relocates to its present rooms behind Place Vendôme. The new bench is built from the wood of the old one.
Soleil is drawn
The third master designs Soleil for his wife. The pleated petal becomes the house's most demanding technique.
A century, quietly
On the maison's one-hundredth birthday no party is held. The atelier closes for a week so every craftsman can rest.
The fifth generation
Today the bench is shared by the fifth generation. The drawings still sit in the original archive book; the year and the bench number are still all that is written.
A single room, behind Place Vendôme, where every Aurelis piece is made from beginning to end.
From wax to setting
Four steps, four pairs of hands. The same four steps since 1898 — and a piece that has crossed all of them stays a piece for a hundred years.
The design
Every piece begins as a single graphite line, drawn in the same notebook the maison has used since 1898. The drawing is signed only with year and bench number.
The wax
From the drawing, a wax model is carved by hand. The atelier still uses a particular hardness of green carving wax, sourced from the same supplier for three generations.
The cast
The wax is replaced by gold through a lost-wax cast. The piece emerges raw, with a skin that no machine can replicate; this skin is then worked away by hand.
The setting
Stones are set last, by a master setter who has worked with the maison for at least a decade before being trusted with a Lumière. Seventy-two acts of attention finish the piece.
What we keep
By a single hand
Every piece is finished by one goldsmith from start to end. No committee, no second pair of hands.
Without season
The maison does not make collections that end. A design that enters the archive stays available indefinitely.
From the same bench
Five generations have worked the same bench, in the same room, behind Place Vendôme. The wood remembers.
Come into the workshop
Find your nearest boutique, or request a private viewing of the archive.