Reliquat: More than jewlery, a new step into glamour

Reliquat: The Parisian High Jewelry House Reinventing Vintage Glamour

In Paris, a new voice is rising in the world of Parisian high jewelry. Its name is Reliquat, a house born from an intimate desire to reopen the doors of the past and illuminate the present.

At the helm stands 23 year old founder Yesel Ken-Eli Moukoukenoff. Drawing strength from her Russo-Mongolian and Ivorian heritage, she shapes a bold, unconventional vision of glamour. She rejects rigid standards and redefines elegance on her own terms. For her, refinement must move, breathe, and sometimes disrupt but always remain sophisticated. Remarkably, Reliquat is a brand that embodies the spirit of individuality.

“The thing I liked most about fashion was the artistic side, the fact that it has a creative element… You work for fashion houses that sell beauty and desire. When the world is torn apart by wars, famine and crises, it’s comforting to see a bit of beauty…”

A Luxury Jewelry House Between Nostalgia and Avant-Garde

Reliquat positions itself as a luxury jewelry house with an ephemeral, nostalgic soul. The brand actively revives antique jewelry and transforms historical inspiration into contemporary statement pieces. Each creation captures the spirit of 1950s Parisian glamour while asserting a strong, modern identity.

Rather than retreating into nostalgia, Yesel uses it as creative momentum. She opens a temporal gateway where past and present interact dynamically. Throughout its journey, Reliquat pushes boundaries as a pioneering jewelry house.

Reliquat celebrates refined glamour while challenging convention. The house embraces avant-garde expression without abandoning elegance.

“I was interested in fashion for its cultural and artisanal aspects, in particular the birth of couture in the 1950s. Whether it was Chanel or Dior, these were two houses that changed their era, which I found extremely interesting and felt was an important mission…”

Excellence and Experience at the Service of Creation

Before launching her brand, Yesel pursued an elite academic path. She completed two years of preparatory classes at the Henri-IV High School and later studied at ESSEC Business School. This strong educational background helped shape the ethos of Reliquat.

She then gained hands-on experience within major luxury and beauty houses, including L’Oréal and Chanel.

During these experiences, she clearly observed how profoundly the fashion industry has digitalized in recent years. As a result, brands now rely heavily on data, analytics, and marketing performance to drive decision-making. Although she valued this strategic insight and understood its importance, she nevertheless refused to let numbers dictate or confine creativity.

Instead, she consciously chose to return to the emotional and artistic core of fashion. In doing so, she repositioned creation at the center of her vision rather than performance metrics. Consequently, this deliberate and values-driven creative approach is precisely what sets Reliquat apart in today’s competitive luxury industry.

“I feel that fashion today has become very data-driven in the sense that we tend to treat fashion as data, and customers as data. It feels somewhat inhumane to me. Fashion has somewhat lost its original cultural and political message.”

For Yesel, fashion remains an art form a language that expresses identity, memory, and desire.

🪡”I couldn’t find meaning in what I was doing, which is why I decided to start my own jewellery brand, Reliquat Paris, which is dedicated to bringing back handmade craftsmanship on a human scale, with a real person behind it. That’s because I think that in fashion, we pay tribute to creators who are no longer with us, which is beautiful… We might highlight living designers who are around right now, which could be a new challenge for the fashion industry, and put the spotlight on people who create on a daily basis.”

A Passion Born from Fashion Magazines

In Fact, long before business school and luxury internships, Yesel discovered fashion through magazines. Her older sister would slip into Fashion Week events and bring home copies of Vogue and Elle. Yesel read them passionately, absorbing their imagery, narratives, and creative energy. In many ways, Reliquat reflects a journey that began with inspiration from those glossy pages.

“When my eldest sister was young, she used to sneak into Fashion Week shows and meet interesting people… Growing up in an environment where we didn’t usually see so much beauty, it made my eyes sparkle. My sister would bring home Vogue and Elle magazines, and there were plenty of them at home. I read them when I was bored, and it made me daydream a lot. I thought to myself, ‘OK, you too could have access to this beauty,’ and it gave me hope, both in my studies and in life, to think that if I worked hard, one day I could have access to this beauty.”

Those glossy pages sparked her ambition to enter the world of fashion not as a spectator, but as a creator.

Today, she acknowledges how beauty standards continue to evolve. She supports a more inclusive, expressive fashion landscape that amplifies unconventional voices. She admires creative disruptors such as Matières Fécales, who boldly challenge aesthetic norms and redefine visual identity. Reliquat is part of this new wave of creative freedom.

“Nowadays, I have a high hope that fashion will give strength to young creators and designers such as Matiere Fecal, who create incredible designs. They are shaking up the social codes of fashion, highlighting bodies that we have never seen before: large bodies, black bodies, short bodies, transgender bodies… I think that’s what fashion should be: a reflection of our society and how it is changing.”

Reliquat: A Living Vision of Contemporary Parisian Jewelry

With Reliquat, Yesel Ken-Eli Moukoukenoff does more than design jewelry. She constructs modern relics. Shapes memory into matter. Mostly, She transforms heritage into living art.

Her vision of contemporary Parisian jewelry balances legacy and modernity. Also, she honors the past while actively shaping the future. She celebrates glamour without imprisoning it in outdated codes. As such, Reliquat perfectly embodies a living vision that continues to redefine Parisian jewelry.

Reliquat does not simply create adornment.
It is an atmosphere.
It creates emotion.
It’s suspended moments where time slows down and elegance endures.

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