This year, there were none of the lavish dinners and glamorous parties that usually herald the introduction of a high-jewelry collection. The Covid-19 pandemic put paid to that. So the jewelry maisons sought fresh ways to reach their customers: Using all the tech they could access, they replaced the parties and dazzling displays of jewelry with some clever online presentations.
Bulgari’s virtual unveiling of its Barocko line was a digitally extravagant combination of animation and illustrations by Ignasi Monreal, a Spanish artist living in Rome who set the mood for the baroque splendor of the collection. It was sent to clients along with an invitation-only app that featured a “try on” augmented reality tool: Through their phone cameras, users could virtually wear the jewelry and shoot a self-portrait.
Chanel, De Beers and Van Cleef & Arpels stepped back from the season, but Cartier, Boucheron, Piaget and Messika produced Zoom presentations. Chaumet unveiled its architecture-inspired Perspectives collection in an event it filmed virtually at its restored flagship’s Salon des Diademes.
Of course, the maisons acknowledge that it is difficult to replace the physical experience of trying on jewelry, so the Tie & Dior collection launched in a live setting in Shanghai, China, where Dior’s exhibition was making a pit stop on its global tour. Piaget, Cartier and others will follow Dior to Asia for intimate viewings, while other clients who like certain pieces will have them sent to their homes to try on.
Could this be the new reality for high jewelry? One way or another, here’s a look at some of the season’s design trends.
Birds of a feather
The fleeting beauty of the natural world has long been a source of inspiration for jewelry designers, whether it be the exotic flora at Chopard, cottage garden flowers at Boodles, the sun at Piaget, the fauna at Van Cleef & Arpels, or the pretty flower and animal motifs in Tiffany & Co.’s recently re-released Jean Schlumberger collection. This year, a more specific subject has emerged: beautiful birds’ wings.
Depending on the culture, birds may symbolize peace, love and power. Some also believe they’re messengers between humanity and the gods, earning them a spiritual aura that makes them a popular theme. The latest high-jewelry ensembles featuring birds include an adorable gem-set owl watch at Chopard (each eye is a dial), and Tiffany’s Bird on a Rock clip with an oval aquamarine, one of the reissued Schlumberger designs. However, the strongest inspiration seems to come from the graceful movement of wings in flight, and the light, delicate structure of a feather.
Feather-based designs range from Cindy Chao’s 2020 Black Label Masterpiece II Green Plumule brooch — which features Colombian emeralds in titanium and was inspired by 18th-century hair adornments — to Boucheron’s carefully engraved mother-of-pearl feather jewels with diamonds, which help set the mood for its sky-centric Contemplation collection.
Outspread wings appear in the colorful, transformable Majestic Plumage necklace with delicate feather marquetry from Piaget’s Wings of Light collection, as well as in its diamond wing earrings with blood-red ruby drops. Wings also serve as an elegant way for Piaget and Boucheron to frame a neckline in diamonds.
Architecture, ancient to modern
One might fancifully imagine that when Europe went into lockdown, jewelers found inspiration in morning walks around their home cities. Of course, the reality is that these collections were designed more than a year ago. Nevertheless, Bulgari’s vibrant Barocko collection is a reflection of Rome’s voluptuous gilded architecture and Baroque motifs, while Chaumet’s Perspectives collection owes much to Italian futurism and Frank Gehry’s deconstructivist aesthetic. With its postmodern Skyline jewels in yellow gold, its latticework creations and undulating curves, Perspectives’ contemplation of architecture shadows the renovation of Chaumet’s historic Paris flagship and its release of eight architecturally inspired rings earlier this year.
Boghossian and Lydia Courteille turned east to Samarkand for their narratives. Boghossian’s Remarkable Pieces collection includes the Samarkand bracelet with marquise, pear and flame-cut diamonds, mother-of-pearl, and turquoise beads. Courteille’s Caravan collection references 14th-century ruler and patron of the arts Tamerlan (Timur), featuring rings that evoke Zoroastrian buildings and the mosaic architecture of Mesopotamia in sapphires, lapis lazuli and turquoise.
Savoir faire
John Galliano at Maison Margiela describes haute couture as “the heartbeat, the engine and the fuel of a [fashion] house: Modern couture fuels a house and shows what it’s capable of.” This philosophy comes through in the savoir faire of high jewelry as well, illustrating what the artisans of the grand maisons can achieve.
Claire Choisne, creative director of Boucheron, declares that technology and traditional craftsmanship “are tools to help us express an idea. Some traditional craft is perfect, but we are also free to find something else that works.” Boucheron conveys this principle by employing new materials like Aerogel, a substance NASA uses to capture stardust. Consisting of 99.8% air — the rest is silica — Aerogel anchors the Contemplation line’s hero piece, the Goutte de Ciel pendant. The jeweler also utilizes a special airbrush technique to paint clouds on a fluid titanium and mother-of-pearl mesh necklace. While the technique is not new, it’s usually applied for all-over color.
Chaumet drew on some of its heritage techniques to reinvent its style, such as fil couteau — a structure that normally “disappears” to give the illusion that gemstones are floating. In this case, it creates volume in the Lacis chapter of the Perspectives collection, which includes a tiara and a series of jewels where rubies seemingly float beneath the diamond structure.
Veneer marquetry is another point of pride — notably at Piaget, a master of this medium. Its maitre d’art Nelly Saunier created the plumage marquetry in Wings of Light, and the company has added leather and parchment to its gem-set wood marquetry courtesy of expert Rose Saneuil.
Abstract
At Dior and Cartier, there is a subtle move away from classic figurative design to contemporary abstract concepts. Cartier’s [Sur]Naturel collection evokes a spirit of nature rather than replicating it literally. This is apparent in its Art Deco serpent necklace with a rare ridge-shaped emerald, and its panther-spot necklace with translucent black opals.
Victoire de Castellane similarly blends abstract
forms and vibrant colors for the Tie & Dior collection. The Dior fine-jewelry creative director references fashion’s tie-dye technique in the way she graduates color and mixes different cuts to compose abstract, asymmetric designs.
Modern and minimalist describe Messika’s circus-inspired Voltige high-jewelry range of linear and geometric silhouettes. The collection theatrically balances large pear, emerald and heart-shaped diamonds in the curves of earrings, making them look weightless, like a flying trapeze artist. “I like to treat diamonds unconventionally,” admits Valerie Messika, who created the collection in just two months during the Paris lockdown. “They can be worn in a cooler way, but are also very dramatic.”
Pendulum earrings
We have had trends of large hoops and asymmetric earrings, and now we can add pendulum designs to the jewelry lexicon, with a number of spectacular stones leading the way. A pair of elongated pear-shaped aquamarines weighing a total of 121 carats were a particularly lucky find for Boucheron, as its water-drop Bleu Infini earrings were designed before the stones were sourced.
Dior and Chaumet also feature pendulum looks — most notably Chaumet’s Art Deco-style Labyrinthe earrings with two oval-cut, vivid-blue Burmese sapphire drops weighing over 6 carats each. Meanwhile, Tiffany & Co. has produced pairs of single-strand earrings in its Extraordinary Tiffany collection, with lines of fancy colored and white diamonds in different cuts. Piaget echoes that linear look with two Colombian emeralds, each suspended on a string of diamonds.
There are also the diamonds with colored-gemstone drops in Bulgari’s Barocko collection, and a pair of linear earrings with jeweled flowers in Boodles’ Secret Garden collection — based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s book and the upcoming film of the same name.
Newcomer: Pomellato
With 100 master goldsmiths working in-house and a 53-year history of creating bold, gold, ready-to-wear pieces, Milanese jeweler Pomellato felt the time was right to officially launch a high-jewelry collection.
Pomellato has created precious items over the years, but not on the scale of La Gioia, its new offering. “This is a high-jewelry tribute to our iconic designs, another way to express them,” explains CEO Sabina Belli.
From rainbow-gemstone-encrusted chain chokers, to bib necklaces evoking the blues of Capri, to a waterfall necklace made of juicy green peridots, the designs are a salute to what Pomellato does best.
“It was not our intention to create a Place Vendôme style,” says creative director Vincenzo Castaldo. “That’s not us. We want to celebrate our own story: our use of color, chains and sensuous volumes.”
La Gioia certainly accomplishes that.
Images: Cartier; Chaumet
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - October 2020. To subscribe click here.