The Big Idea: High Jewelry Gets Hip
Gem-set hoodie tassels? A magnetic jeweled pocket that doubles as a cuff? A carabiner dripping in precious stones? If such adornments don’t sound like haute joaillerie, get ready for the new French revolution. Rather than sticking to the standard fare (think opulent gala necklaces and earrings in classic motifs and familiar cuts), Boucheron, Cartier, Chaumet, and other establishment ateliers are devising entirely new—and often quite casual—ways to rock extravagant stones.
At Boucheron last July, exuberant models danced to “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham! and other colorful ’80s hits while decked in high-wattage jewels that ranged from the aforementioned hoodie tassels to a bejeweled Rubik’s Cube–style necklace to a pom-pom hair tie sparkling with tsavorites. It was a far-out spectacle for the gilded space in Paris’s jewelry mecca, the Place Vendôme—and a signifier of what’s to come. Boucheron’s creative director, Claire Choisne, has been pushing the envelope for years with her out-of-the-box creations, whether an ear climber of diamond-encrusted octopus tentacles or a pendant necklace whose centerpiece is made of Aerogel, a high-tech, ultralight material used by NASA to catch stardust.
It has been a welcome shake-up in the otherwise rigid confines of high jewelry, and now other maisons, including Cartier and Chaumet, are starting to follow suit, dreaming up funkier pieces in an effort to appeal to new generations of well-heeled clients with decidedly more informal lifestyles. In January, Chaumet, known for its tiaras since the 18th century, presented an eight-piece capsule collection, Un Air de Chaumet, including avian-themed earcuffs with diamond and gold plumes that curled up over the ear as if in flight, while a diamond hair ornament portrayed a soaring flock of birds. Cartier set a utilitarian carabiner in a brilliant array of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, lapis lazuli, onyx, black spinel, turquoise, and chrysoprase; meant to dangle from a belt loop, it even features a tiny jewel-encrusted clock. It was among a handful of wild, one-of-a-kind pieces from the company’s Polymorph collection, which debuted in March. Even the brand’s 110-year-old Panthère motif got a makeover: Diamond, onyx, and moonstone claws adorn a clock brooch that fastens to a lapel as if pawing its edge.
In a métier d’art that arguably hasn’t evolved much since the 1920s, this burgeoning revolution suggests that how we one day wear jewels may be limited only by designers’ imaginations.
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Emeralds: Glenn Spiro
Image Credit: Claire Benoist/Styling by Jessica Oshita Beautiful old Colombian emeralds, the kind Glenn Spiro describes as “sultry, luscious, and rich,” have long been prized gems and, accordingly, hard to find. But the stars aligned, says Spiro, when he was offered a necklace with over 200 carats of the stones from a French estate sale last year. The London-based jeweler known for his singular, contemporary style, set some of the emeralds in a necklace of green-tinted titanium, intensifying their rich, velvety color. The seven-figure piece sold immediately.
Spiro has been collecting old Colombian emeralds for years and recently assembled many of them in avant-garde pieces, such as the necklace shown here with the stones set in carved ebony. Most designers would have reserved emeralds of this caliber for more-classic styles, but as Spiro says, “I don’t like boring jewelry, and I don’t like rules.”
And he doesn’t like the “shiny” look of new, perfectly faceted emeralds, either. He prefers old, included stones with character—for example, the seven-carat Colombian emerald he purchased last year and set in an ebony and gold ring. His friend fashion designer Tamara Mellon purchased it at Spiro’s St. Barts salon last winter. “I won’t find another like that gem,” he says.
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Material Innovation: Fernando Jorge High Collection
Image Credit: Courtesy of Fernando Jorge On a trip to a national park in his native Brazil, designer Fernando Jorge picked up a smooth brown pebble from a dried riverbed, which got him thinking about what defines beauty. That reverie led to his latest high-jewelry collection, which combines brown diamonds with sculpted brown pebbles, and white diamonds with marble, in large, curvaceous cuffs, rings, and earrings.
“I found it intriguing to place diamonds with humble pebbles,” says Jorge. “The diamonds brought out the beauty in the pebbles.”
In another play on contrasting materials, he set vibrant Brazilian emeralds in carved-malachite designs and rare yellow diamonds in yellow amber (seen here). The 16-piece capsule collection, unveiled at Jorge’s first solo exhibition at Sotheby’s in New York in November, presents jewelry as more than the sum of its parts—but rather as an artistic expression of color, texture, and shape.
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Solitaire Diamond Ring: Hemmerle
Image Credit: Courtesy of Hemmerle Anyone familiar with Hemmerle’s arresting aesthetic will instantly recognize the jeweler’s solitaire diamond rings. The tip-off? The purity of the sculptural setting rendered in unassuming bronze, brushed matte gold, or iron metals—and, of course, the diamond. “We look for diamonds that have a unique character,” says fourth-generation proprietor Christian Hemmerle.
He searches for old stones, preferably those with an old-mine cut, which he says have “an unparalleled beauty, as they were cut by hand before the invention of modern equipment, giving a more natural and unprocessed quality to the stone.”
What appears remarkably simple is the most complex to achieve; it’s an exercise in restraint. “We focus on creating a harmonious coexistence of materials, textures, and colors that embody the researched simplicity we wish to evoke in each creation,” says Yasmin Hemmerle, Christian’s wife and cohead of the company. Inside the house’s Munich atelier, the couple collaborate with master goldsmiths to develop the perfect metal patination that will enhance each diamond’s unique hue, and the resulting material is then sculpted to spotlight the star of the show: the diamond.
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U.S. Debut: Ming
Image Credit: Courtesy of Ming Jewellery Ming Lampson has been one of the jewelry world’s best-kept secrets. For the past 20 years, she has stuck to what she loves: hunting for unique stones and making them into one-of-a-kind pieces under her eponymous label, Ming, sold exclusively through her intimate shop in London’s Notting Hill. But after turning down countless requests from luxury stores, she couldn’t resist when Stephen Russell offered to present her work at its Madison Avenue boutique for one week last year. “I was excited for my jewelry to sit alongside vintage Van Cleef & Arpels and Suzanne Belperron pieces,” she tells Robb Report.
Lampson’s designs are driven by her self-described “obsession” with gems. This year’s cache of outsize stones includes a mystical star sapphire (seen here), a bright-orange spessartite garnet, and a juicy purplish-pink spinel. She doesn’t adhere to a singular style but rather looks to create a unique home for every gem. Trained as a goldsmith, she uses classical techniques and what she calls a “quiet fierceness” to, for instance, cradle a 20-carat spinel in a rose-gold ring with graphic purple ceramic lines or perch a blue sapphire on a ring of gold and royal-blue enamel stripes.
The secret is out.
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Modern Swan Style: Harry Winston Double Cross Necklace
Image Credit: Courtesy of Harry Winston Harry Winston’s new lariat-style diamond necklace recalls chic midcentury icons such as Babe Paley and Slim Keith, whom Truman Capote famously called his “swans.” The late socialites are once again in the spotlight thanks to this year’s Ryan Murphy–created FX series Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, and it’s reinvigorating interest in their signature style. Elegant and glamorous, the Double Cross necklace draws attention without overpowering.
To construct it, the house assembled dozens of round diamonds in a seamless platinum necklace with two 10.88-carat pear-shaped diamond drops—a D-flawless white and a fancy vivid yellow. The duo are a reminder of the Indore Pears, a set of famous pear-shaped Golconda diamonds (46 carats each) that the company’s namesake founder purchased from the Maharaja of Indore in 1946. Winston sold, repurchased, and sold them again, this time to another royal family, demonstrating how great diamonds live on well beyond their various owners. Capote’s swans would have approved.
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Earrings: Forms
Image Credit: Claire Benoist/Styling by Jessica Oshita Inspired by Japanese artist Hiroshi Senju’s world-famous waterfall paintings, Forms created earrings made in undulating ultralightweight lines of blue titanium set with hundreds of diamonds that seem to float, evoking cascading water. “We became interested in studying Senju’s use of color, movement, and proportion,” says Tzvika Janover, the brand’s creative director, who collaborates closely with his master craftspeople in his Hong Kong studio.
The earrings are an example of the house’s technical prowess. Janover and his team can spend over a year on a single piece. As a result, Forms creates no more than 100 pieces annually, each centered on rare stones and ancient artifacts—from Golconda diamonds and Burmese rubies to dinosaur bones and Mesopotamian beads. Inside the workshop, artisans mix their own alloys, carve stones, and experiment with new settings that push the boundaries of what’s possible with metal. Two common threads throughout: a minimalist color palette and a beguiling sense of movement.
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Jewelry of the Year: Tiffany & Co. Star Urchin Necklace
Image Credit: Dan Wonderly Over 760 carats of 340 hand-carved chalcedony spikes seemingly sprout from the neck on Tiffany & Co.’s extraordinary Star Urchin necklace from its 2023 Blue Book collection Out of the Blue, which debuted last summer. Set in 18-karat white gold, the cone-shaped stones are meant to mimic the pointy spines that protect the marine creatures from predators. Entrapped in their snare are twisted strands of 718 round brilliant diamonds totaling over 18 carats that wrap around five sizable oval tanzanite stones adding up to 59 carats. The necklace took two years to complete and is a tribute to the American jeweler’s venerated in-house designer, Jean Schlumberger, whose sea-urchin brooch from over a century ago inspired the design. Tiffany has since used the motif in various other ways but never to such dramatic and voluminous effect.
The piece is a reminder that the incredible craftsmanship honed in Schlumberger’s era is alive and well today. It might even be heightened in Tiffany’s modern atelier, now led by Nathalie Verdeille, an immense design talent poached from Cartier three years ago. Case in point: Some of the spikes delicately move, just as they would under the sea—a feature not realized in Schlumberger’s originals.
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Color Story: Louis Vuitton Seeds Necklace
Image Credit: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton Flora and fauna themes are perennial references in high jewelry, so it’s refreshing to see Louis Vuitton explore a more granular motif. Francesca Amfitheatrof, artistic director of watches and jewelry at the French house, has gone deeper, looking at the origin of the flowers and plant life that have, for so long, served as inspiration.
Chapter II of the maison’s Deep Time high-jewelry collection—its largest to date—zeroes in on everything from DNA molecules to seeds to explore, in gems, the origin of life. Sprouting from the mind of Amfitheatrof, the “seeds” of the necklace seen here take on much larger dimensions than their real-life counterparts: six oval-cut rubellite tourmalines totaling 146.07 carats affixed to the bottom of a hollowed yellow-gold honeycomb-patterned collar set with diamonds. Perched above are six cabochon-cut Mandarin spessartite garnets weighing 57.43 carats, which provide a secondary pop of color. Nestled in the center is a 20.27-carat oval-cut Nigerian spessartite garnet atop a 52.75-carat pear-cut rubellite tourmaline. The piece’s use of symmetry, the way the stones are given room to breathe on their own, and its vibrant contrast of colors burst through well-trod territory to create a breath of fresh air.
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Technique: Van Cleef & Arpels Le Grand Tour Bracelets
Image Credit: Clara Gaudillere Van Cleef & Arpels’s Le Grand Tour bracelets are a master class in jewelry artistry. One exceptional piece portrays Venice’s Grand Canal as seen from the windows of the Doge’s Palace in a mosaic of hundreds of meticulously shaped sapphires, rubies, tourmalines, tsavorite garnets, and diamonds on an articulated bracelet. The one seen here is inspired by Florence’s ancient Duomo, rendered in rose gold shown against an ombré blue and mauve sapphire and diamond sky. To achieve the miniature landscapes, lapidary artists and jewelers spend hundreds of hours precisely cutting the stones and placing them in a painterly way on supple gold bracelets, each a work of art.
This jewelry has its roots in the 1920s, when the French house depicted Egyptian motifs in a series of lavish diamond and gemstone Art Deco bracelets. CEO Nicolas Bos tells Robb Report that over the years the house has developed a method that prevents gaps in the landscape image when the bracelet encircles the wrist. “There is a very technical aspect behind the double-hinge system that allows us to keep the elements together,” he explains. The bracelets are the ultimate “souvenir”—if you can get your hands on one.
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Daytime Diamonds: Nikous Koulis Me Collection
Image Credit: Courtesy of Nikous Koulis One of the greatest challenges for any designer is to evolve their style while staying true to their DNA. Nikos Koulis, known for his amazingly glamorous yet refined diamond jewelry, has achieved that with his new Me collection. “It’s about simplicity and proportion, and sometimes you need to be a little daring in your approach,” says the Greek jeweler.
One such boundary-breaking design is a blackened brushed-gold collar appointed with a dozen sleek emerald-cut diamonds that appear to hover over the metal. When Koulis unveiled the new collection at Bergdorf Goodman in April, a woman in a T-shirt and jeans found the necklace irresistible and purchased it on the spot for more than $300,000. It’s the blackened or yellow brushed gold with a matte finish, he says, that makes even big stones appear remarkably discreet and understated: “My clients want beautiful diamond pieces that they can wear all day and never take off.”
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Unisex Jewelry: Cartier Polymorph Carabiner
Image Credit: Hugo Juliot Everything from a funky pair of sunglasses with gems lining the edge of the frames and dripping down the back of the tips to a Panthère-inspired brooch designed as a claw (meant to be worn as though it’s pawing at the edge of a lapel) pop up in Cartier’s wildly fun Polymorph high-jewelry collection.
But the undeniable standout is a curious carabiner—for rock climbing of a different sort. It comes adorned with emeralds, rubies, lapis lazuli, onyx, black spinel, turquoise, chrysoprase, sapphires, and diamonds and doubles as a clock. But it’s not for the neck or the wrist—the French maison instead proposes it for a belt loop. What could be more casually modern than that?
But while the idea seems thoroughly fresh for a new generation of jewelry wearers of all genders, the hardware motif has been a running theme at the house since Aldo Cipullo introduced the Love bracelet, famous for its screws, in 1969. Since then, everything from bolts to nails has featured in various Cartier designs.
A one-of-a-kind high-jewelry tool for the belt loop, however, takes the concept to an entirely new level.
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Vintage: Suzanne Belperron for René Boivin at Stephen Russell
Image Credit: Claire Benoist/Styling by Jessica Oshita A century ago, when she was just 25, Suzanne Belperron designed a fashionable necklace of rock crystal, lacquer, and turquoise beads for René Boivin. That singular Art Deco piece, available at the Stephen Russell jewelry store on Madison Avenue, epitomized the designer’s pioneering style: bold, sculptural, and strikingly modern. Until recently, her name was known mainly to collectors, but she has been discovered by a new generation with an appreciation for her confident aesthetic, says Russell Zelenetz, a partner in Stephen Russell. Over his 40 years in business, he has become one of the best sources for the designer’s vintage items.
One reason the French jeweler wasn’t widely recognized was that she didn’t sign her pieces. “My style is my signature,” she replied when asked why. To be sure, that style drew clients to her jewelry long before they knew her name, Zelenetz says, but now they come in asking for Belperron. “It’s colorful and strong, but not ostentatious,” he notes. “And still modern.”
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Cocktail Ring: Lugano Rose-Cut Flower Ring
Image Credit: Courtesy of Lugano Diamonds Sourcing exquisite stones and setting them in high-impact but ultra-wearable designs while also building a relationship-focused business has been a recipe for success at Lugano. As a result, the company has been rapidly expanding. It now has salons in just about all the well-heeled markets, from its headquarters in Newport Beach, Calif., to Aspen to Palm Beach.
At its newest shop, in Greenwich, Conn., which opened its doors in October, sizable diamonds of every color are found in both modern and classic settings. A standout is the 18-karat-white-gold Rose-Cut Flower Ring set with 12.4 carats of rose-cut diamonds and 0.7 carats of round diamonds. It commands attention on the finger and sparkles without being too clunky. And, like all Lugano pieces, it manages to strike a balance between traditional and edgy design that’s resonating with clients around the globe. The jeweler opened its first international outpost, in London, at the end of April.
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Creative Design: Boucheron More Is More Collection
Image Credit: Robb Rice Inspired by the ’80s-era design collective the Memphis Group—known for its wildly graphic and colorful furniture, lighting, fabrics, and more—Boucheron creative director Claire Choisne has proved that high jewelry doesn’t have to be stiff. Her latest Carte Blanche (clean slate) collection, an annual series that allows Choisne an anything-goes approach to design, is pure fun. Among her whimsical inventions: A diamond and onyx pocket affixes via ultra-strong magnets and actually creases with your clothing when you sit; it also doubles as a cuff bracelet. Gem-set hoodie tassels are magnetized so they can replace the strings on your everyday cotton go-to, while their tips detach to become earrings. Meanwhile, a necklace set with cubes of diamonds, gray spinels, pink sapphires, and mother-of-pearl is made to evoke your childhood Rubik’s cube game.
This is not child’s play. The pieces Choisne creates are, in fact, extraordinarily complicated and are made even more challenging to produce by the fact that they’ve never been done before. Nothing is out of the realm of possibility. She has used a scientific algorithm to create a necklace sprinkled with diamonds in a titanium cloud around the neck and has incorporated aerogel, a material typically employed by NASA and commercial aviation. With her latest jewelry collection, Choisne continues to outdo herself.
