“If I’m independent today, it’s thanks to him,” Mr. Akkad said. “I don’t need to depend on anyone else for a shape.” He sculpts and produces all his jewels himself, although he works with a master gem-setter for mounting stones — always without prongs — and a polisher to finish the pieces.
His bold, sculptural style has made Mr. Akkad an insider favorite.
“When you look at Walid’s work, you can see this high jewelry mastery, with perfect execution and stones, but there’s something else to it,” Esther de Beaucé said by phone. She now owns Galerie MiniMasterpiece in Paris, which specializes in jewels designed by legendary artists — among them Picasso and Frank Stella — as well as contemporary ones.
“He’s a pure spirit,” she said. “It’s like he’s kept the soul of a child in the right way, with a freedom of form and subject that I find extraordinary.”
His process “is a clever game where he approaches a serious subject in a way that’s fun,” she said. This fall, she will present a limited edition of eight cuff bracelets by Mr. Akkad, each numbered, in silver with touches of enamel, to be priced around 5,000 to 6,000 euros, or $5,339 to $6,400.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, to a father who was a silk merchant and a glamorous, art-loving mother who was a formidable hostess, Mr. Akkad said he knew his calling by the time he was 10.
“It all started with a fascination with stones,” he said recently in his showroom, recalling a board game he once received as a birthday gift that included a world map and little pots of faux diamonds and gold nuggets. “My parents hoped maybe I’d become a successful international gemstone trader, he said.
