Lot 121: Vintage Ignacio Toledo Clips

In our vintage business, there are plenty of mysteries. They come into our hands along with gorgeous treasures — such as these clip-on earrings. Let's try to unravel the mystery behind them, shall we?

First, let's take a closer look at the stamp on the back. What do you see?

Most collectors believe it to be Jacques Toledo. Indeed, if you google this name, you'll find many absolutely stunning and very expensive pieces of jewelry. But the real name of the designer was not Jacques...

We are confident of this because we were fortunate enough to find a piece of paper with a larger inscription of his name. Take a look yourself and try (without peeking ahead) to decipher it:

Do you see Jacques? Nope, right? So now we know for sure that he was Ignacio.Ignacio Toledo — yes, this is the real name of the author of these clips.We know the real name of the designer, so half of the task is done. Now let's see what is known about Ignacio. Practically nothing. A simple Google search won't help; we need archives of magazines and translations from French. It took us a year to find anything at all. And we are proud to share this story.

The L'Officiel article about Ignacio Toledo (1989)

Ignacio Toledo - a dentist from Mexico who relocated to Paris and, failing to obtain accreditation for his diploma, transitioned into a jewelry designer. He collaborated with Lacroix, Ungaro, and Mugler. It's a story that seems straight out of a movie!

An article about Toledo was published in the French newspaper Le Figaro in 1992 under the title "Ce Mexicain surrealiste cree des bijoux baroques" / "This Mexican surrealist creates baroque jewelry". There, he talked about working with various materials such as leather, clay, plexiglass, resin, and wood. 

"Changing the functional purpose of the material, turning the ordinary into something valuable, and transforming to surprise the audience also attracts me as much as creating new forms," Toledo said.

When we read about those experiments with materials we remembered another pair of clips that were designed by Ignacio Toledo as well:



In the same article, he mentioned his plans to release a collection of furniture for the home and garden, as well as tableware items.

In Paris, Ignacio Toledo's studio was located at Avenue Gambetta, 19.

Now that we know the full story behind these clips, we can understand the roots of the design. Ignacio Toledo, being Mexican, drew inspiration from the tribal aesthetic of ancient Maya culture.



Let's return to our clips. Please note that each clip has a distinct design. One of them includes an additional row of holes. We suspect it might have been a sample model. However, in today's admiration of Ignacio Toledo's jewelry, these imperfections are regarded as an integral part of his design process.