Dior’s latest collection of High Jewellery, The Tie & Dior Collection brings Victoire De Castellane’s love of coloured gems front and centre. Before this collection was launched, if anyone would have told me that textile tie & dye techniques would be the jumping-off point for a High Jewellery collection, I would have scoffed at them. How can one such distinct medium to be successfully translated into another, I would have asked them? The Tie & Dior collection has answered all such questions.
Tie & Dior High Jewellery
Victoire de Castellane, creative director of Fine Jewellery at Dior has created a collection that showcases her unique style aesthetic to wonderful effect. Two themes underpin the entire collection- asymmetry and mismatch, a delicious combination which makes this collection beautiful, surprising and very compelling. It is this lack of conformity that keep the jewellery pieces fresh and pull you back again and again, to marvel at the splendidly crafted necklaces, rings, bracelets and earrings.
Tie & DIOR earrings in yellow gold, white gold, diamonds, pistachio cultured pearls, emeralds, sapphires, pink sapphires, tsavorite garnets and paraiba-type tourmalines by Dior Joaillerie
The lines of the pieces are fluid- there are arcs and swells in the jewellery silhouettes which seemingly continue in the cuts of the gemstones as well- round, oval, pear and marquise, there is hardly a straight edge to be seen. This, however, is exactly what makes the jewellery pieces so attractive.
There is also a bold and fearless use of colour. Sparkling rubies, velvety sapphires, verdant emeralds, deeply hued garnets and burnished topazes, to name a few, lend exuberance and vitality to each piece. The colours appear in blocks- gemstones of the same colour are set side by side, like sparkling mosaic pieces, interrupted occasionally by brilliant-cut diamonds. Victoire has described this very evocatively as “spots of colour spreading on a blotting paper.” Capturing this in the three-dimensional form of a piece of jewellery is not simply amazing, it is a testament to the remarkable craftsmanship of the Dior Jewellery atelier.
Tie & Dior High Jewellery Necklace with ruby, diamonds and pearl.
Then there are the cultured pearls, sea gems with a strong and vibrant personality of their own. Blush pink, silver-blue and deep gold with green overtones, it seems as if Victoire de Castellane plumbed the deepest oceans to find the rarest Tahitian and South Sea pearls for this collection. Set a little off centre, usually perched at the edge of a piece, the pearls add more than just colour-their presence draws attention to textures, as these lustrous orbs create a brilliant contrast to the precise lapidary presentation of the other gems, giving each piece an organic and very tactile feel. After twenty or so odd years at Dior, when Victoire finally brought cultured pearls into her jewellery pieces, she did it with undeniable flair and verve.
Tie & DIOR earrings in yellow gold, platinum, diamonds and purple cultured pearls, rubies, spessartite garnets, pink sapphires, yellow sapphires, paraiba-type tourmalines, emeralds and tsavorite garnets
Luscious and extravagant, this collection lives and breathes saturated colour, which has been immortalized in playful and somewhat edgy jewellery pieces. To say that the world needed something as sunny and uplifting as this collection right now, would be an understatement. A glittering potpourri of jewels, designs and craftsmanship, the Tie & Dior collection embodies unfettered joy in the form of high jewellery.
Edit by Reema Farooqui
IG: @thecultureofpearls
