Heritage Meets Poetry in High Jewelry

Chinese jewelry artists Anna Hu and Christine Chen draw inspiration from the poetic beauty of gardens. Anna Hu’s Orchid Minuet collection captures the grace and fragility of its namesake flower, even recreating veinlets on the hand-painted titanium petals that cradle the stone at their center. Christine Chen (Serendipity) chose the perfect venue to present her floral-inspired collection, at the Musée des Arts Asiatiques - Guimet, surrounded by ancient objets d’art and screens depicting garden scenes. Her Jardin du Rêve collection, which looks to Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny, suggests a dreamscape of flowers and ponds, the latter mirrored by the shimmering opals that feature in almost every piece. Flowers and grasses are at the heart of Chaumet’s Jewels by Nature collection, which celebrates the eternal cycle of Nature. Symbolic of the collection’s three chapters, the Oat and Field Star, Carnation and Fairy Iris parures trace a flower’s journey from bud to full bloom. Meanwhile, both Mikimoto and Pasquale Bruni observe the delicate nature of petals. Diamond petals settle on Mikimoto’s multi-strand pearl necklaces, as though carried by a gentle breeze. The Japanese house explores the delicate tints of conch pearls, translucent plique-à-jour enamel, peachy-pink morganites, tourmalines and colored sapphires to capture their fleeting beauty. Through Pasquale Bruni’s lens, petals become a dazzling parure imbued with the warmth of an Italian sun. Ablaze with diamonds, they and inspired by a lone rose that the house’s creative director, Eugenia Bruni, found growing in the garden of the now empty family home, this collection does more than tell a simple story of petals. It is a memory of a happy childhood. /public-objects/2b9e6ee1-a694-4a9d-b395-ce65d0c4335f-5b96f841-54f5-442f-9e0b-a6ae33cd391e-Bague%20Les%20P%C3%83%C2%A9tales%20%C3%82%C2%A9Mikimoto1000.webp Image sélectionnée Boucheron’s capturing of nature is characteristically idiosyncratic. Emerging like sculptures from curved structures, an astonishingly lifelike thistle, tulip, cyclamen and oat evoke ikebana floral arrangements. The Impermanence collection unfolds from transparency to pure white, to vanish into pitch black — an effect made possible by materials that are not normally seen in jewelry, such as 3D-printed resin, borosilicate glass, ceramic, black sand and Vantablack. /public-objects/463993d1-7046-4af7-a02d-356932776598-f79abe42-dfeb-416c-a81c-f2935ca04551-Broche%20Cyclamen%20%C3%82%C2%A9Boucheron1000.webp Image sélectionnée Heritage reinvented Vintage is another thread that runs through several of the high jewelry collections unveiled in July. Graff celebrates the freedom and glamour of the 1960s, when the House of Graff was founded, with the 1963 suite. Elliptical forms dance across a spectacular necklace, bracelet and earrings: a flamboyant composition of 7,790 exceptional oval, baguette and brilliant-cut diamonds totaling 129 carats. Graduated in size, each baguette diamond is custom-cut to create a perfect harmony of light. Skillfully concealed inside the diamond ovals, a line of emeralds offers a flash of Graff’s signature green – a tour de force by the house’s master artisans. Other jewelers return to the Swinging Sixties as the decade that forged their style. Piaget’s association with 1960s art and artists is celebrated in a colorful collection, with nods to Salvador Dalí, Arman and Andy Warhol. Elsewhere, Pomellato references its expertise as a master of gold through sculptural links which it accents with vibrant colored stones. Among the pieces presented by Bucherer, a platinum brooch set with 370 diamonds celebrates the 1920s, the decade that marked the beginning of the house’s jewelry adventure. A white opal of more than five carats sits above asymmetrical diamond waves forming a halfmoon shape. Their different cuts sculpt the light in unique ways. Buccellati’s vintage inspirations converge in bejeweled evening bags, which the house has modeled on clutches and minaudières from its heritage collection. Combinations of golds, rigato engraving and the tulle motif transpose the house’s ornamental language into contemporary designs for bags with diamond-embellished, engraved gold clasps, gold handles and precious trims. Accessories for a very special evening, they are joined by a collection of one-of-a-kind jewels. Cocktail rings are an enchantment of sculpted gold crowned with magnificent gems. /public-objects/eb0fcb5b-3dbc-4a28-8ec7-5634037c4727-c256e1fe-6fca-4515-ad1b-fc1a2b9e131e-Boucles%20d'oreilles%20Orchid%20Minuet%20%C3%82%C2%A9Anna%20Hu1000.webp Image sélectionnée Timeless icons Ever since it was founded in 1847, Cartier has proved itself a master in the art of combining purity of line with harmony of form. Openwork structures and delicately articulated constructions become compositions that have the lightness and suppleness of the softest fabric. Exceptional stones are never a distraction; instead, they illuminate the whole. Part of the En Équilibre collection, the Pavocelle necklace is an eloquent example in which a succession of motifs fan out like peacock tails. The blues and greens of Louis Cartier’s much-loved “peacock style” are reflected in the blue of the magnificent 58-carat Ceylon sapphire that adorns this creation. Other style icons take to the stage this summer. De Beers signs collections that mix polished gems with rough stones, confirming its more than 135 years of expertise and access to the world’s most beautiful colored diamonds. The London jeweler’s Essence of Nature collection pays homage to four trees that grow in diamond-producing countries: the baobab, the jacaranda, the camelthorn and the maple. The textures of their branches and bark are engraved in gold but it is, inevitably, the diamonds in rare blue, violet, mauve, pink, yellow, orange and green hues that draw the gaze. Boghossian’s icon is color and the luminous, fluid harmony of stones. Each jewel is crafted exclusively around the stones themselves, in an almost painterly fashion. The Lirya collection is a symphony of colored gems of remarkable purity and density. Adler returns to the origins of western civilization, to Mystras and 13th-century Greece, with designs that borrow details from Byzantine mosaic and architecture. Supple, transformable earrings come to life through superpositions in which light weaves a path through openworked motifs. /public-objects/d41f23f4-b1c0-4436-b17e-5ca419d87653-f42be62d-f77a-4b9c-b263-a728432d1847-Boucles%20d'oreilles%20Lirya%20%C3%82%C2%A9Boghossian1000.webp Image sélectionnée From delicate blooms and the rebirth of Nature to the legacy of the natural world and that of the jewelers themselves, this summer’s collections reinvent the language of high jewelry with depth and emotion.