Dior Joaillerie has produced the most enthralling high jewellery collection by Victoire de Castellane as her signature style - ‘Dior print'. The collection comprises with Graphic and abstract shapes, bows, flowers, halos, and waves exist. it’s both what we’d expect from the Maison and completely unexpected in its aesthetic diversity.
The most recent "Gallons Dior" collection, which was introduced in January 2022 considered the trimmings, swags and braids used by Maison's founder as couture adornments. The theme has taken elements of couture fashion and injected them into jewellery that uses colour graphically and fantastically in equal measure. Dior's high jewellery collection draws on traditional watchmaking skills to create articulated lightweight links for a necklace that drapes over the collarbone, its fluid form and entanglement of multicolour ribbons more material than metal.
Dior Print continues along these lines by imagining a technique in which fabric prints can be supplanted onto high jewels. ‘The idea was to draw prints on ribbons or flowers" - de Castellane tells of her interpretation of both classic and figurative prints. Each printed pattern is thought of as a hand-stitched fabric on which the positioning of the stones gives a deliberately rowdy appearance to the whole. The artistic director of Dior Joaillerie is inspired by the intricacies of an haute couture gown for the 137 new pieces, which are adorned with playful motifs.
The collection imbues ribbons of precious gems with delicate gradients of colour or draws the ubiquitous Liberty print in ruby, spinel and yellow diamonds. Graphic rings, cuffs and necklaces eschew traditional symmetrical silhouettes to embrace random design codes, while floral prints and stripes are imposed on gold strands, becoming an intricate necklace. The Vendome ring, necklace and bracelet are graphic and conceptual like Lego bricks have been dropped and sprinkled with diamonds upon landing. According to Dior, we are looking at a “crazy tossing of stones, including some exceptional specimens like an 11.58-carat D flawless pear-shaped diamond, a 14.66-carat Burmese sapphire, and a 10.27-carat ruby from Mozambique.
The ‘masterpiece’ of the collection is a mash-up of floral prints and stripes. The necklace features interlaced ribbons of gold in three colours with articulated links that borrow from watchmaking techniques. Other necklaces are set with an 11.92-carat Colombian emerald, a large pear-shaped Paraiba tourmaline and a striking opal cabochon. Elsewhere in the Dior Print universe, we can discover a fresh take on check motifs using grids of blue sapphires punctuated with round brilliant-cut diamonds and finished with large oval-shaped sapphire centre stones. The classically masculine check is reworked in notable creations, like a ribbon necklace adorned with a 12.07-carat Madagascar sapphire, a double ring set with a nearly six-carat Ceylon sapphire, or drop earrings whose edges appear sliced clean, as if snipped with scissors.
To celebrate the launch of the collection, Dior hosted a Dior Print catwalk event on June 4, 2022, at the Grand Hotel Timeo in Taormina, Italy. Pieces were combined with haute couture fashion by Maria Grazia Chiuri and an especially created make-up look by artist Peter Philips. Models were adorned and posed like living paintings of Grecian goddesses, surrounded by stone pedestals to pay tribute to the postures of Greek statues.
And let’s not forget stripes, which are mingled with flowers in pink, violet and blue sapphires, white diamonds, and mauve amethysts on rings, necklaces, earrings and a secret watch. Significant gems abound, including an 8.02-carat lilac sapphire from Madagascar, as well as rubies, spinels and yellow diamonds that embellish white gold braiding. Among the jewels inspired by Liberty prints, we find two ribbon necklaces with a 10.05-carat cushion-cut D flawless white diamond and a 3.04-carat fancy vivid yellow diamond respectively.
