The high jewellers guided by haute couture: Dior and Chopard dazzle with jewelled takes on lace, Chanel draws inspiration from its iconic tweed, and Boucheron caused a stir with The Power of Couture

Jul 1 , 2024

Chopard’s Precious Lace high jewellery collection is dedicated to lace created by haute couture artisans. Photos: Handout

There is forever a romantic allure associated with haute couture, whether because it represents the best of France’s fashion heritage, because each piece is a work of art that is made to order, or because it requires a team of skilled petites mains to painstakingly put it together. When haute joaillerie is inspired by haute couture, that romance lingers – more so because this high art of dressmaking is reinterpreted through hard, precious materials such as diamonds, sapphires and white gold.

Dior is likely the first maison that comes to mind whenever haute couture is mentioned, and during the Paris Haute Couture Week 2024 for spring/summer, Dior Joaillerie artistic director Victoire de Castellane paid homage to the brand’s dressmaking heritage with the 79-piece Dior Délicat high jewellery collection.

Chopard introduced new additions to its Precious Lace high jewellery collection at this year’s Watches and Wonders fair in Geneva

De Castellane chose to emphasise the embroidery and lace elements of Dior’s haute couture creations, with pieces including a choker-style necklace set with diamonds and rubellites in a floral design reminiscent of lace. Another necklace features multiple, criss-crossing strands of diamonds in different cuts, to convey the different styles of trim from Dior’s designs.

Chopard’s Precious Lace high jewellery collection is also dedicated to lace done by haute couture artisans, and the maison introduced new additions to the collection in April, during the Watches and Wonders fair in Geneva. The heart is a popular motif in Chopard’s jewellery world, and the latest additions to the Precious Lace collection have the brand’s version of lace hearts available in earring form. Pear-, heart-shaped and brilliant-cut precious stones come together in statement-sized earrings set with emeralds or rubies. One design features white diamonds set against 18k yellow gold, with the white on gold contrast bringing to mind the aesthetic of antique lace.

Tweed Royal necklace, from the Tweed de Chanel high jewellery collection

Within the collection are also two necklaces that each can be worn in three ways – as a necklace that drapes just above the collar bone, shortened into a choker-style necklace, or shortened further to become a bracelet. Chopard’s jewelled take on a lace ribbon, a petal and scallop-edged motif used throughout the Precious Lace collection, is repeated across the length of the necklace – resembling the frills used to decorate the necklines and sleeves of dresses.

The designs in the Precious Lace collection were able to showcase both the intricacy of lacework and the natural beauty of the diamonds used. “Sometimes gems encapsulate such natural beauty that the challenge for the jeweller is to emphasise their aura without excess,” said Caroline Scheufele, Chopard’s artistic director.

Le Col (The Collar), from Boucheron’s The Power of Couture collection

Boucheron looked to ceremonial military wear for The Power of Couture collection, also unveiled during Paris Haute Couture Week in January. Elements from military uniforms such as buttons, medals and epaulettes were turned into high jewellery pieces set with white diamonds and rock crystal. The rock crystal used throughout the collection is treated to a frosty white tone, providing a soft contrast to the diamonds. This is particularly apparent in pieces such as Le Tricot (The Knit) necklace, where the rock crystal is cut to resemble a fourragère braid.

The fourragère is a decorative cord worn on the left shoulder as a military award, and The Knit gives multiple rows to the braid – accentuated with white diamonds – in a wide necklace that mirrors the suppleness of fabric in high jewellery form.

Le Col (The Collar) necklace is another show-stopper – one that uses diamonds in various cuts to form a jewelled version of a lace collar, and required some 1,900 hours to create. The diamonds are set in ultra-thin lines of metal, giving the impression that the collar is floating, and the necklace can be disassembled and worn as two different pieces.

Turning to its own haute couture heritage, Chanel has famously taken inspiration from tweed, a fabric iconic to the house, for its Tweed de Chanel high jewellery collection. Chanel introduced 63 more pieces to the collection last year, with the new designs further categorised under five other elements that are iconic to the brand – the camellia, ribbon, lion, sun and star. The pièce de résistance is the aptly named Tweed Royal necklace, where the tweed fabric is depicted through yellow gold set with diamonds and intertwined with 37 oval-cut rubies – a head-turning work of jewel art that took 2,400 hours to craft.

A necklace from the Tweed de Chanel high jewellery collection

In the middle of the necklace sits a diamond-encrusted lion head in white gold that can be worn alone as a brooch. A little more subtle but no less impressive is the Tweed Camélia cravat necklace featuring pink gold, set with diamonds in the interwoven pattern, along with 33 pink sapphires in various cuts, and a white gold and diamond camellia in the middle that is also detachable.

As haute couturiers continue to elevate the art of dressmaking, high jewellery artisans are drawing inspiration from them, all while pushing the boundaries of what they can achieve with precious gems and metals.

Masterpieces

Dior’s Délicat haute joaillerie nods to the brand’s dressmaking heritage, while Tweed de Chanel pays homage in high jewellery to the maison’s iconic tweed fabric
Chopard’s Precious Lace presents jewelled takes on the delicate fabric, and military chic takes centre stage in The Power of Couture, part of Boucheron’s Histoire de Style