AKILLIS is a celebration of freedom. Mostly designed at the family base in the north of France, lines reflect their designer’s hectic, passionate lifestyle full of travel and new encounters. Caroline Gaspard was only 25 when she created Bang Bang in 2007, a collection of gold pendants set with diamonds that marked the beginning of AKILLIS. The success of this adrenaline-charged line showed the hunger, among both men and women, for a new kind of jewellery that allowed them to assert their personality. AKILLIS has a characteristic unisex appeal that also transcends age. In an increasingly bland world taken over by globalisation, it has become a real luxury to be able to express one’s own style or mood and follow an individual agenda – one day a femme fatale, the next day, an innocent ingénue or powerful businesswoman.

An instant success, the brand built a strong reputation with increasing acclaim as each new collection pushed the boundaries.

Less than a decade on, the name AKILLIS has proved to be richly deserved – honouring the valour of its Homeric hero namesake and the competitive spirit of its founder, a great sportswoman and skilled rider. New classics are establishing themselves alongside signature collections Bang Bang and AK. The playful jigsaw pieces of Puzzle join up to symbolise life’s essential connections in small charm bracelets and pendants, rings, and a sublime High Jewellery necklace. The irresistibly pared-down target design of Licence to AKILLIS packs a powerful aesthetic and symbolic punch, while the Bridal line seals the promise of two lives bound together. The quintessence of a snake is captured in the Python collection’s ultra-contemporary designs, with its three new High Jewellery necklaces offering further proof of the brand’s exquisite craftsmanship.

To keep up with its boundless creativity, AKILLIS needed to set up its own workshops – the brand is uncompromising when it comes to the excellence of French jewellery makers – and even boasts its own foundry with a dedicated smelter for each alloy. Based in Lyon, its team of jewellery makers, gemsetters, polishers and foundry, fashion AKILLIS designs from the finest materials : gold, diamonds, fine and precious gemstones. Traditional manufacturing processes such as lost-wax casting are used alongside the most advanced technologies, from laser welding to water jet polishing machines. Eager to share its know-how, the AKILLIS team is also ready to tackle any challenge, whether it be manufacturing a hollow, perfectly rounded bullet with undetectable soldering for the AK line, moulding Cruella earrings into a secondskin fit, or bringing the scales of a python to life. Besides mere technique, acquiring the right level of sensitivity for the workmanship requires hours spent alongside experienced craftspeople. Thus younger team members learn skills such as matching the cut of stones with perfect regularity – AKILLIS jewellery is grain set with six claws, adjusting the bristles of a brush, or removing a thread to achieve a perfect polish on a jewel and give it a life of its own, so it doesn’t end up sitting in a safe.

In designing creations that are truly one of a kind, the special order department takes the notion of freedom to its furthest limits. Everything becomes possible when one is metamorphosing a dream. From rough sketch until the jewel sits finished in its case, this quest for uniqueness challenges the craftsmanship and artistry of all the AKILLIS teams.

Moscow was the city that gave Caroline Gaspard her start. She opened the first AKILLIS boutique there in 2009, before expanding the empire to Europe’s most exclusive destinations – Courchevel, Saint-Tropez, Monte Carlo, London, Florence – and across the world to include New York, St. Barts, Dubai, Kiev and Beirut. In 2013, the opening of an AKILLIS boutique in the Golden Triangle of Parisian jewellers, at 332 Rue Saint Honoré, inaugurated a new chapter in the amazing success story of this singular brand that still has plenty of surprises in store.