By Victoria Gomelsky

Two years ago, Sandra Müller, one of the designers profiled in this issue, introduced herself to me by way of email. At the time, she was working on her magnum opus, a dramatic gemstone sculpture for a private client, a wealthy European art collector for whom money was no object. I told her that on my next visit to Los Angeles, my hometown and Müller’s adopted city, I’d drop by her workshop to see it.

When I finally got a chance to meet Müller and see the sculpture, then a work in progress, I was awed by her remarkable vision. Conceived as a fantastical island sitting atop a craggy specimen of hematite, selenite and fluorite, which Müller cherry-picked from the private collection of Andrew Carnegie, the sculpture was born of a simple but cryptic request. Her client had given her nine acorn-sized diamond pavé skulls and said, “Make me something special.”

After scores of failed sketches and false starts, Müller produced a $350,000 sculpture that told her patron’s life story in precious gems and metals. She named it “Rebirth.” Its central feature was a bonsai tree, hand carved in silver and oxidized, with a height of 12 inches, or 30 centimeters. The tree lent its spindly branches to hold a plate-sized slab of rock crystal composed of nine individual slices fused together and embedded with the original set of skulls, imparting the piece with a ghostly, Gothic vibe.

The devil, in this case quite literally, was in the details. Müller and her assistant, Felipe Aguilar, spent the better part of a year hand carving the silver base that surrounded the island. The base depicted waves crashing against the rugged coastline of the island, with the skeletal hand of Satan reaching out from the deep and flashing a groovy sapphire ring.

It goes without saying that a project of such complexity required an enormous amount of time, money and commitment. That’s why, like the other top-notch designers featured in this issue, Müller depends on the wealth and largesse of private clients — collectors with impeccable taste and bottomless bank accounts — to inspire and enable her creativity. Even, or perhaps especially, in the midst of a global economic downturn, these rarefied consumers are seeking jewelry and objets d’art that reflect their very extreme understanding of extravagance: one-of-a-kind jewels incorporating first-class gemstones, such as those displayed in this special issue, our first Extravaganza edition.

That we are living in an age of great wealth makes such creations possible. A pessimist might see poverty as the flip side to the prosperity coin. But in another, more optimistic light, the corollary to the era’s great affluence is the creativity and beauty that are borne of it. It’s to these extraordinary outcomes that we dedicate every page of this special issue.