What We Saw at the High Jewelry Collections

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January is the coldest month of the year in Paris. Even its gilded monuments struggle to gleam. Thank goodness, then, for this, the first Paris Couture Week of the year. Because it’s not just the glitter ball of designers, stars, and high-net-worth individuals streaming up and down the Ritz Paris’ plushly carpeted stairs that up the heat. Rather, it’s the dazzling diamonds, sapphires, and lustrous pearls adorning the latest high jewelry designs that have seen us hotfoot it to the French capital this week. From Dior to Graff, Cartier and more, the high jewelry presentations run through Thursday.

Here’s what we’ve seen:

Dior

“It goes without saying that when you create a jewelry collection for Dior, you think of the word couture, and I realize over time that I have continued to rework couture elements such as ribbon, bows, embroidery, cut and line, and lace,” says Victoire de Castellane, creative director of Dior Joaillerie on her design thinking in a recent book Dior Joaillerie: The A to Z of Victoire de Castellane. On Sunday, she unveiled Dior Milly Dentelle, a 76-piece collection of unique pieces informed by the intricate patterns of lace, the fabric that has taken center stage in de Castellane’s ever-joyful imagination.

Guipure lace is a particular inspiration for the designer, and its dual character of strong lines and romantic motifs serves the translation from a soft cloth to a hard, precious metal perfectly. Guipure is a Franco-German reference to a style of lacemaking where fine, twisted braid is embroidered to create firm graphic lines of connecting paths around a chosen pattern, typically on a theme.

With this collection, de Castellane uses gold as the connector and takes us on a journey through the gardens of Christian Dior’s cherished former mill house in Milly-la-Forêt. This rural retreat at the edge of Fontainebleau is where he would take respite from the city in between collections.

The jewel designs include a large, oval rose-gold ring, its cartoon-like central flower surrounded by a halo of diamonds and pink and yellow tourmaline florals, all the while framing the sizable emerald-cut gem at its center. Rings are a prominent feature in Dior Milly Dentelle, each design toying with voluminous and linear forms, while earrings are designed in architectural gold outlines, with gem flower motifs. Ancient filigree references also abound, dotted gold outlines resembling hand-stitching, and blade-thin lines of gold mimicking the braided lace. These multi-layered techniques also highlight the specialist skills needed to express fluid stories in hard, precious metals and stones. As de Castellane herself admits: “Everything that is obvious when drawing or designing in fabric, such as flounces and pleats, becomes an amazing feat when you apply it to jewelry.” dior.com

Graff

Significant diamonds (as in, seriously sizeable) are rare, hard to find, and tricky to work with, which is why Graff, the London diamond house famed for its large white and yellow varieties, reigns supreme in the field. It is also why it often chooses to unveil a single piece to represent a collection. This year, at its Peter Marino-designed Rue Saint-Honoré boutique, the house’s London jewelry workshop has captured the natural, textural character of birds in a necklace that appears to be something of a love dance. The male bird is, as is the way in nature, is majestically feathered, yet it is the lesser-plumed female counterpart who holds the power, swooping in dangling a 13.51-carat intense yellow pear-shaped diamond in her dainty black onyx beak. graff.com

Boucheron

Frédéric Boucheron was obsessed with the notion of creating “real” jewels, in the spirit of feral nature. Indeed the eerie verisimilitude of Boucheron’s archive diamond ivy, thistle, fern, and insect jewelry designs is such that the proprietor’s dream was almost realised. This week, the house creative director Claire Choisne offered Untamed Nature, her own sculptural take on Frédéric Boucheron’s modernist vision. In a suite of 28 transformable gold and diamond designs, her wind-swept reeds, twisted leaves, and wilted flowers form a jeweled ecosystem all their own. boucheron.com

Chaumet

Chaumet’s way of fusing the meticulous detail of traditional techniques with a touch of contemporary influence holds firm. This week, the house at 12 Place Vendôme unveiled Bamboo, a 10-piece suite of brooches, rings, and necklaces drawing elements from the woody Asian grass variety. It reflects Chaumet’s early 1970s style, where organic shapes in geometric combinations of yellow and white gold mirrored the Space Age aesthetic of the times. Stand-out pieces include the brooches, one which can be worn as a hair ornament, another designed in two, as a “pair,” and the third with flexible diamond elements. And, of course, there’s a Chaumet Bamboo tiara, a refreshingly modern expression of the traditional head jewel. chaumet.com

Cartier

A three-act drama in precious materials, the Cartier Nature Sauvage collection has been  launched over a six-month timespan, from June 2024 to this week’s final installment. The mystical menagerie is completed by this suite of five pieces, including the blue sapphire-speckled “winged” Ispida ring, and two Panthère necklaces, one of which, the Panthères Versatiles, is double headed, so it can be worn around the neck, down the back, or wrapped around the wrist. Perhaps, though, it is the Tiger necklace that truly encapsulates Cartier’s uniquely naturalistic approach. Set with glossy black onyx and various fancy color diamonds, from yellow to orange and brown, it arrives complete with a fully articulated front paw. But then, as Jacqueline Karachi, Cartier creative director of high jewelry reminds us, “There is nothing romantic or sweet when it comes to Cartier’s representation of nature.” cartier.com

Meanwhile, in Shanghai…

As a Roman house, Bulgari tends not to show in Paris. Instead, it is in Shanghai celebrating its Serpenti motif in honor of the Chinese Year of the Wood Snake. Serpenti Infinito, an exhibition of 28 commissioned artworks, has just opened in a renovated historic compound in Beijing’s Jing’an district. Both Chinese and international artists were invited to reimagine the character of Bulgari’s jeweled reptile through time, and the celebrations continue through a collection of special-edition watch and jewelry designs. A fine selection of Bulgari Heritage pieces is on view, too. The exhibition runs through February 16th. bulgari.com