The biggest high jewellery launches of 2023 so far: new collections from Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci, Cartier and Chanel explore art, nature and history, in medium’s continuing search for inspiration

From Cartier’s grand soirée at the Palazzo Corsini in Florence with actor Adrien Brody playing DJ, to a performance in one of the world’s oldest open-air theatres – the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens – for Louis Vuitton, this year’s high jewellery presentations from the top luxury houses were fittingly sumptuous.

The strength of this rarefied category is reflected in many ways – typically lush gala dinners and exclusive experiences to court high-net-worth clients and media in far-flung places – and sees a switch up from the typical presentations at the tail end of couture shows. More concretely, reports say that before the appetisers at Christian Dior’s high jewellery event on the shores of Lake Como were served, 80 per cent of Victoire de Castellane’s latest collection, inspired by Monsieur Dior’s lifelong love for gardens, had sold. And that was after the brand put out its largest high jewellery collection to date – as have Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co. too this year.

As Cartier president and CEO Cyrille Vigneron told Vogue Business at the time of its high jewellery event in Florence, “[Post-lockdown], high jewellery is seeing a very strong rebound.” Indeed according to recent estimates published by management consultancy Bain & Co. global jewellery sales were up 25 per cent year-on-year to €28 billion by the end of 2022. Along with leather goods, jewellery is the fastest growing category in the luxury sector.

The high jewellery collections shown this year, from Bulgari in Venice to Van Cleef & Arpels’ Le Grand Tour in Rome, reflect a growing appetite for jaw-dropping jewels. Forget “quiet luxury” too: this season many of the creations were unapologetically bold, with gobstopper gems, even unusual ones, in an array of arresting combinations. Meanwhile, inspiration was drawn from everywhere from under the sea and tectonic movements to lush private gardens.

Below, Style distils the key trends and stand-out pieces.

A stroll through a garden

Christian Dior was famously happiest in a garden. “Thankfully, there are flowers,” he once said of his lifelong love for them. This year creative director Victoire de Castellane returned to the theme of gardens with a 170-piece collection, including three watches. Highlights were the Buisson Couture emerald necklace, featuring a 17-carat emerald surrounded by diamonds, emeralds, rubies, tsavorites, pink sapphires and spinels, and asymmetrical pieces set with flowers, butterflies and rainbows. Many of the pieces were transformable, with necklaces that could be turned into brooches or rings.

The serenity of a well-maintained garden was also the inspiration for Chaumet this year, with the elegant French jeweller hosting a soirée in the gardens of Château de Bagatelle in Paris with floral pieces that expressed the maison’s delicacy and sensitivity to all things botanical.

Fire and ice

Francesca Amfitheatrof, artistic director for watches and jewellery at Louis Vuitton, was inspired by the traumatic prehistory of our planet: its tectonic convulsions, volcanic eruptions and oceanic inundations for her unapologetically bold fifth collection for the maison. With unexpected gemstone combinations such as a stunning necklace of mandarin garnet and rubellite, and the Rupture necklace, a transformable piece with three rows of gems including unusual ones such as zircons and Mexican opals with the “fire inside”, the collection was truly seismic.