The Notre-Dame Collection: where the clock hands are reborn as jewellry

One Night in April 2019

On 15 April 2019, shortly before eight in the evening, the spire of Notre-Dame de Paris gave way to the flames. Designed by Viollet-le-Duc and completed in 1859, it had risen ninety-six metres above the capital for more than a century and a half. In a matter of minutes, a silhouette all of Paris believed eternal vanished into the smoke. With it vanished the Collin clock, installed in 1867.

It was from that night that our Notre-Dame collection was born. It exists to honour what withstands the passage of time: the memory of a place, and its power to be reborn.

The Clock Without a Surviving Plan

Of everything the fire took, the Collin clock holds a place apart. Installed in 1867 by the house of Collin-Wagner, it drove the four dials of the transepts and struck the hours above Paris for more than a hundred and fifty years — an entirely manual mechanism of over five thousand pieces of cast iron and brass.

In the aftermath, the clockmakers made a troubling discovery. Unlike the timber framework, which had been digitally recorded before the fire, the clock never had been. Its original plans had disappeared from the archives. Only photographs remained. The very object that measured the time of Paris had faded away without a trace.

A few weeks later, one discovery changed everything. A master clockmaker identified, in the church of Sainte-Trinité in Paris, a sister clock — made in the same workshops, in the same year. Through it, the artisans could record the dimensions and redraw what had seemed lost. The reconstruction of the mechanism is now under way.

This story moves us deeply. To reproduce a form in order to save it from oblivion is the very gesture on which our atelier was founded.

From One Hand to the Next

At Marie Louise Orlach, every piece begins with a clock hand: a fine form, heavy with history, that measures and embodies the passing of time. The Notre-Dame collection draws on the design of the storied hands associated with the cathedral — those the fire of 2019 carried away.

To reproduce these forms is to grant them a second existence. What once soared towards the Paris sky now comes to rest in the hollow of a hand, or at the ear. The gesture is intimate; the symbol, immense: to wear Notre-Dame is to wear eight centuries of French history.

The Story of a Rebirth

Five years after the tragedy, on 7 December 2024, Notre-Dame de Paris reopened its doors. The cathedral was restored with its original materials: oak for the framework, lead for the roof. Viollet-le-Duc's spire has returned to its place in the Paris sky, and new dials once more adorn the transepts. In the workshops, the mechanical heart of the clock continues to be reborn. The story is still being written.

The cathedral was raised again by artisans faithful to the original craft. That same fidelity guides our atelier. Every piece is worked entirely by hand — from the first sketch of the clock hand to its final gilding, made and gilded in Paris. Every piece takes time, because it speaks of time.

Jewellery That Tells a Story

To give or to wear a piece from the Notre-Dame collection is to affirm a bond: with Paris, and with the belief that catastrophe can become rebirth. These pieces tell the story of the night of 15 April 2019, and of the spire that once again rises above the Seine. A narrative one wears, and passes on — the way one passes on a memory.

A Collection Conceived as a Tribute

Notre-Dame is our third collection, after Art Déco and Royale. It holds to the same standard: handcrafted jewellery created from reproductions of clock hands rich in historical symbolism, made entirely in Paris. Where Art Déco celebrates the elegance of an era and Royale the grandeur of a heritage, Notre-Dame speaks of fragility and resilience.

Discover the Notre-Dame collection, and wear what is reborn.