Stefano Ricci SR Cigar Holder — Mother of Pearl / Palladium

Stefano Ricci SR Cigar Holder — Mother of Pearl / Palladium

The cigar holder is present throughout the session in a way that the lighter and cutter are not. Where the cutter acts once before the smoke begins and the lighter once at its start, the holder is in continuous contact — held at the lip or between the fingers for the duration, the material of the object present as an extended tactile and visual experience rather than a momentary one. The choice of material in a cigar holder is therefore felt differently from the choice of material in a lighter: not as an impression made once, but as a sustained relationship between the smoker and the object over the full course of the smoke.

Stefano Ricci builds the SR cigar holder with Mother of Pearl details and palladium finishing. The combination places two materials in deliberate relationship: nacre, which is organic and iridescent — its color shifting with every change in angle and light, the surface alive rather than fixed — and palladium, which is metallic and constant — cool, bright, and precisely the same at every angle and in every light. The sustained presence of the holder over the course of a session means that both qualities are experienced over time rather than at a glance.

Mother of Pearl

Nacre is formed over years inside living mollusks, deposited in thin layers of aragonite and protein around an irritant. The iridescence is structural — the result of light interference between those thin layers — and it shifts continuously with angle and light source, the same piece of Mother of Pearl showing white, cream, pink, silver, and blue depending on how it is held. On the cigar holder, this surface is present at close range for the duration of the session: a material that does not resolve into a single color or a single impression but continues to change.

Palladium Finishing

Palladium on the hardware details — the fittings, the mechanism, the accents — brings the cool, silver-white precision of the SR palladium line to the cigar holder. Where gold adds warmth to the Mother of Pearl, palladium holds its cool temperature against the nacre's iridescence, the contrast between the shifting organic surface and the steady metallic one defining the character of the piece. The palladium cigar holder completes the trio of SR Mother of Pearl accessories — lighter, cutter, holder — in the cool-register finishing.

Now available at The Tobacconist of Greenwich.