FLORENCE, Italy — Dior Joaillerie artistic director Victoire de Castellane did it again.
Since her arrival at the brand 25 years ago, the designer has succeeded in shaping a consistent style and a comprehensive collection of fine jewels in sync with the couture brand and founder Christian Dior’s universe and inspirations, including his love of gardens — and of roses in particular.
This season, de Castellane and Dior’s artisans created a mesmerizing collection of a miniature, dreamy and fairy tale-like world of flora and fauna for the Diorama and Diorigami collections, unveiled in Florence with a fashion show in the courtyard of the cloister of the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella.
The location was fitting, with its stunning frescoes under the arches, and Dior recreated a lush garden that would have made Monsieur Dior happy. The models, wearing 25 outfits created for the occasion by Maria Grazia Chiuri, artistic director of women’s haute couture, ready-to-wear and accessories collections, wove around the flower shrubs and plants to a soundtrack by Brian Eno chosen by de Castellane. Guests sipped Ruinart Champagne on cushioned patio seats to take in the show after dinner.
The collection took about two years to be completed and, throughout, “Florence and the Renaissance emerged as the best venue” to present it, said de Castellane during a preview interview at another stunning location, the Belmond Hotel Villa San Michele, where the jewels could be seen up close.
And this collection in particular deserved closer inspection. De Castellane brought to life landscapes and animals in an imaginary and enchanted, fairy tale-like Milly-la-Forêt, a town of floral gardens near Paris loved by the couturier.
Diorama is a pun on the name of the brand but also defines a miniature three-dimensional scene, where figurines are arranged against a background. She reinterpreted the toile de Jouy print, which decorated the walls of the historic Dior Colifichets boutique in 1947, for the very figurative Diorama collection.
De Castellane imagined tiny foxes, hedgehogs, butterflies, deer and squirrels peeping from the trees, either lacquered, carved from chrysoprase or set with precious stones. In a game of hide-and-seek, owls peer through branches adorned with rubies and swans appear in a pond of sparkling blue sapphires, while a golden rabbit leaps into a bush of diamonds.
The Diorama collection draws on the intricate technique of glyptic, which involves carving ornamental stones, as well as sculptured techniques like bas-relief or ronde-bosse.
Each set highlights a single color, coupling the deep green of emeralds with the softer green of tsavorite garnets, or red rubies with delicate pink sapphires.
De Castellane praised Dior’s “fabulous workshops” for bringing her ideas to life, “painstakingly, with lightness and finesse. I love to reinvent stories and work with details and improve antique techniques.” The settings need to be light and flexible. “Women need to be comfortable wearing these jewels, almost forgetting they are wearing them,” she said.
Her intention is to bring joy. “There are so many sad things around us. I am happy looking at these jewels, I would like to be tiny, enter this world and have a look into this forest,” she mused, smiling.
The Diorigami collection reveals another interpretation of nature, more graphic and abstract.
It’s a tribute to the Japanese paper folding art of origami and to the couture technique of pleating, which Dior has employed ever since the creation of the Bar jacket and its perfectly pleated skirt. Birds, rabbits, and Christian Dior’s favorite flowers form part of the rich graphic universe of the Diorigami sets.
The collection is composed of 172 pieces. Exceptional stones include a 10.69-carat D-FL diamond, a 16.16-carat Colombian emerald, a 7.02-carat Mozambique ruby and a 13.25-carat Burmese sapphire.
Asked if finding artisans to craft such delicate jewels was difficult, de Castellane said she sees an increasing number of young students passionate about jewelry craftsmanship. “It’s no longer only about being a fashion designer; in fact there is more branded jewelry now and a younger generation launching jewelry collections,” she contended.
This is not the first time de Castellane has chosen Italy to present Dior’s high jewelry collections. Last year she unveiled the Les Jardins de la Couture collection at Cernobbio’s Villa Erba on Lake Como and in 2022 in Sicily, in Taormina.
