Baccarat’s crystal finds new poetry in shadow and light
Photographer Daphne Lejeune and creative director Aliocha Boi reimagine the French crystal house's iconic vessels through a lens that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.
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Light moves across crystal differently than across any other material. It fractures, bends, collects in the depths, transforms the transparent into something almost liquid. Baccarat, the French crystal house founded in 1764, has long understood this conversation between radiance and form. Now, through the lens of photographer Daphne Lejeune and the creative vision of Aliocha Boi, that dialogue acquires a new and deliberately enigmatic dimension.
The project, titled Résonances, strips away the expected glamour of luxury crystal and instead invites shadow to play an equal role. In Lejeune’s black and white compositions, Baccarat’s vessels emerge from darkness as sculptural objects, their forms revealed through careful manipulation of light and absence. A goblet becomes a study in geometry and restraint. The familiar silhouettes that have graced tables and collections for generations suddenly demand a different attention, a slower looking.
What distinguishes this collaboration is its refusal of ornament. Where Baccarat’s heritage might suggest elaborate narratives, Résonances trades decoration for contemplation. The photographs move away from the ceremonial display and toward something more intimate, almost archaeological in their treatment. Each piece is isolated against void, forcing the eye to consider the purity of proportion, the precision of the cut, the way crystal itself seems to hold and release light as though breathing.
The partnership between Lejeune’s disciplined photographic practice and Boi’s curatorial sensibility results in work that feels both contemporary and timeless. The savoir faire for which Baccarat is revered emerges not through opulence but through the clarity of vision that shapes every frame. A stack of crystal vessels. The play of a hand against glass. The geometry of a single goblet suspended. Each detail becomes a note in a visual composition that speaks to the quiet authority of mastercraft.
Résonances represents Baccarat’s continuing evolution as a maison, one where the heritage of excellence remains constant even as the lens through which we view it shifts and refocuses.
Imagery courtesy of Baccarat (@baccarat).