LUXE TREND 28
HAUTE JOAILLERIE 2017 — FROM HIGH FASHION TO HIGH JEWELRY.
Right in the center of Place Vendôme in Paris, there is a Dior store dedicated to the brand’s High Jewelry collections. The store, designed by the brand’s star designer, Peter Marino, is clad in grey silk and decorated with original artwork by the likes of Damien Hirst. It serves as the perfect modern jewel box for the house’s High Jewelry collections, designed by Victoire de Castellane.
The marriage of disciplines between Haute Couture and High Jewelry is founded in that both art forms require masterful technical expertise to create pieces that utilize precious materials with innovations in design and construction. That relationship has grown even closer in recent years with many couture houses, like Dior, venturing into the world of High Jewelry by presenting their own collections. For these houses, High Jewelry represents another brand extension, one that complements their heritage in the luxury market.
Various online videos testify to the determination these houses exhibit in order to be perceived as real contenders in the High Jewelry milieu. It no longer matters that Boucheron has over 125 years of High Jewelry expertise; Dior and Chanel are aggressively positioning themselves as Boucheron’s equivalent in expertise. The pieces produced for these jewelry lines are aimed to attract collectors as much as affluent brand acolytes.
Chanel — Coco Avant Chanel
Coco Chanel, ever the innovator, presented her first High Jewelry collection in 1932. She imagined and designed the Bijoux de Diamants collection, a fine jewelry collection that featured pieces inspired by celestial objects. Comets, stars, and suns, the symbols of subsequent Chanel high-jewelry collections — Bijoux de Diamants was unlike anything that had been presented at the time.
The latest collection, Coco Avant Chanel, paid tribute to the women who supported Gabrielle Chanel before she became famous. Each of the jewels was named for an individual, and largely crafted from the signature materials of the Chanel atelier: pearls, ribbons, and lace. The Suzanne ring (named for the socialite Suzanne Orlandi, the first woman to wear an original Chanel garment) featured rosy pink padparadscha sapphires and gray moonstone cabochons.
The highlight of this collection is the Gabrielle necklace, which is wrought from a single piece of white gold and features a 10-carat pear-cut diamond.
Dior — Dior et d’Opales
This year Dior celebrates 70 years since the launch of the New Look. For her latest jewelry collection, Victoire de Castellane was inspired by the opal to create one of the most imaginative and original collections for the house. In her words: “[The opal is] a very poetic stone, that invites you to create fairy tales and magic. When I look at it, I see the earth from afar, oceans, archipelagos, reflections, stars on the waves … I see it as the stone that represents nature the most, a stone so linked to the feminine that it becomes organic.”
In these magical creations hidden jeweled watches appear under opal cabochons as central bracelet motifs. Opals are used as kaleidoscopes to capture the colors of all the colors of the surrounding stones. Diamonds reflect the lucidity of the opals, trapping the colors within their crystals.
Thanks to the color variety of the precious stone, some settings that were created in pink gold complemented the subtle colors of pale opals.
Louis Vuitton — Blossom Collection
A few seasons ago, Louis Vuitton’s entry into High Jewelry introduced several innovations, such as the LV diamond cut that recreates the house’s quatrefoil logo on a diamond.
This season, LV presented their Blossom Collection. The collection’s star pieces use stones in pastel colors (such as green beryls and lavender spinels) in combination with diamonds. Intricate architectural constructions of the jewels’ settings continue the house’s main inspiration which is the city of Paris. Once again the LV jewelers experimented with innovative cuts for their gems, giving the pieces a distinct Art Deco flavor.
The main trends from all the collections.
Hidden watches appeared in many of the High Jewelry collections, including some extraordinary examples from luxury watchmakers, such as this Audemars Piguet Punk Diamond watch shown at the SIHH fair in Switzerland. This timepiece was one of several AP jewels that featured up to 10,000 pave diamonds.
Bold color combinations and pastels dominate the season. Colored stones are used in exotic ways, and with settings that push the limits of traditional manufacturing. Even in settings, the appearance of soft, pink gold at Chaumet and Dior brought a retro vibe to some of the pieces that feel appropriate for our time. By contrast, the bold use of rubies for a pair of earrings at Alexandre Reza seemed anachronistic.
Jewels that can tell a story — or, better yet, create a new one — feel intriguing. Exoticism is on the rise, especially in jewelry design, and, as always, is a doorway to one-of-a-kind individuality. These pieces are conceived to elicit conversation, indeed beyond the mention of their brand name.