PARIS — Excessive jewellery might have gotten a style of vacation spot occasions however in the case of displaying its greatest and boldest designs — and stones —there is no such thing as a place like its historic residence: Place Vendôme.

Not even the lengthy shadow of COVID-19 and upticks of Omicron variants all over the world may dim the gleam of gem stones earlier this month as homes large and small drew bold-face names, shoppers and worldwide editors to their showcases.

Given the variety of “reserved” notices that peppered displays, patrons definitely rose to the event.

Take Chanel’s “Attract Céleste” necklace, the centerpiece of the “1932” anniversary assortment. Earlier than the excessive jewellery displays formally kicked off, fortunate friends within the Grand Palais Éphémère got one final look at its 55.55-carat sapphire, one in all three celestial motifs surrounded by radiant imprints, earlier than it went to its new proprietor.

Fortuitously, excessive jewellery creation studio director Patrice Leguéreau expanded the themes of the moon, the solar and the comet into an extra 76 designs, a lot of which included transformable gemset motifs.

“From the beginning, [movement] was a tenet I adopted just like the Night Star. I needed lightness, I needed motion, I needed suppleness, I needed poetry, too,” he mentioned.

To that finish, he labored with a blue diamond, but additionally rubies, sapphires, tanzanites and a hanging trio of blue-black opals — assertion stones every person. However the white and yellow diamond palette of the unique “Bijoux de Diamants” yielded essentially the most hanging gems within the assortment.

On the middle of the solar motif of the “Soleil 19 Août” necklace is a 22.1-carat fancy vivid yellow diamond, whereas a pair of 19-carat white diamonds had been the twinned middle stones of the stately “Comète Constellation” diamond encrusted collar necklace. To modify issues up, they may very well be swapped with a duo of star motifs and worn on a hoop.

Whereas July felt like a return to pre-pandemic splendor, COVID-19’s aftereffects will proceed to be felt for the following couple of years, anticipated Toshikazu Tajima, president and chief government officer of Tasaki, who was again in Paris for the primary time since 2020.

The Japanese excessive jeweler was presenting “Radiant Sky,” the fifth Atelier excessive jewellery assortment of artistic director Prabal Gurung, rife with sizable turquoises that seemed like fluffy clouds had brushed their floor, a rainbow of gem stones and, after all, pearls. Impressed by the sky beneath changeant circumstances, it felt like a metaphor for the jewellery trade’s reconfigured enterprise atmosphere.

Though the model initially misplaced 30 p.c of its gross sales from inbound vacationers, primarily these from China, its home market in Japan ultimately grew 20 p.c — an goal that had been a part of its five-year plan set in 2017.

However that’s to not say Tasaki’s abroad enterprise dwindled: enterprise in China doubled in 2021, and its European enterprise, pushed primarily by good – “practically break-even” – outcomes at its retailer within the Ritz in Paris, additionally progressed considerably.

Within the U.S., the place it’s current with out bodily flagships, strides had been additionally made, though Tajima mentioned a flagship was not within the fast plans as the corporate focuses on its London retailer, opened on tony New Bond Road a number of months earlier than the 2020 lockdown.

For the primary six months of 2022 — Tasaki’s fiscal 12 months is related to the pearl harvesting season and begins in November — the corporate noticed 26 p.c development at fixed change charges in comparison with 2021’s first half. Tajima projected that development ought to improve to 30 to 35 p.c as soon as vacationer gross sales begin to get well.

He credited these good outcomes to robust model fairness and elevated buyer loyalty, but additionally to elevated curiosity within the excessive jewellery phase.

“To be able to [make] our operation profitable, we actually want extra high-ticket items, [high ticket] clients,” he defined.

Throughout the board, distinctive stones dominated the excessive jewellery collections, confirming a development towards funding items, or relatively “a stone that retains its worth all through [a client’s] life, and even generations,” as Chaumet’s CEO Jean-Marc Mansvelt put it.

Even Buccellati, which delved deep into its archives for classic designs and items it has purchased again and painstakingly restored, supplied up a 74.25-carat aquamarine nestled within the “Deep Gentle Blue” cuff bracelet’s gold foliage, edged by sinuous traces of brilliant-cut diamonds.

It was one of many highlights of a range that went all the way in which again to cocktail rings from the ’50s to ’70s, and an oblong floral frieze brooch with rose-cut diamonds from the ’40s.

“What me and the fantastic thing about it’s that when it’s classic, you realize there is just one,” mentioned Maria Cristina Buccellati, the home’s international communication and advertising and marketing director and granddaughter of founder Mario.

Likewise, with Taiwanese jeweler Cindy Chao, the place her fluttery ruby-encrusted Ribbon brooch and its 76.91 carat old-mine diamond from 2018 practically overshadowed 2022’s Masterpiece designs: a cuff figuring a sleeve with two yellow cushion-cut diamonds as cuff hyperlinks, and a windswept tropical leaf completed with a Muzo inexperienced Colombian emerald.

In fact, the bigger the stone, the extra essential the design.

“The query we all the time ask ourselves is: how can we showcase these gems to finest intensify their magnificence? This is likely to be by presenting them collectively as a group of stones or making a design that serves to rejoice the fantastic thing about a single stone,” mentioned Anne-Eva Geffroy, design director at Graff, whose 80-piece “Graffabulous” assortment totaled some 3,600 carats of diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies, together with a 109-carat Sri Lankan sapphire and a 22-carat yellow diamond.

After unveiling its annual Crimson Carpet assortment in Cannes, France, Chopard showcased 10 items throughout Couture Week at its Parisian flagship. The setting allowed guests to get near the 70-carat pear-shaped fancy gentle brown-yellow diamond that appears edged in glittering lace — extra diamonds, after all — on a three-strand necklace.

A 37.97-carat inexperienced tourmaline set on the “Feuillage Diamant” (or “diamond foliage”) aluminum cuff bracelet is among the standout items at Boucheron, the place the total “Ailleurs” assortment by inventive director Claire Choisne was unveiled by a sequence of intimate displays in the home’s Place Vendôme residence.

It was among the many valuable stones that contrasted with humble and fragile supplies like rattan, burnt wooden and preserved butterfly wings that Choisne become extravagant creations impressed by nature.

“King of diamonds” its founder could also be, but it surely was all manners of rubellites, aquamarines, tourmalines and colourful gems that stood out in Harry Winston’s “Majestic Escapes” assortment.

If blues dominated this evocation of seaside locations, the octagonal-cut rubellites — arrayed as neatly because the Amalfi Coast flower beds that impressed it — was definitely price choosing.

On the highest flooring of the Hôtel de Crillon, De Beers unveiled a second chapter of “Alchemist of Gentle” and additional reached past its diamond-centric identification.

Cue the “Ascending Shadows” set and its whorls of blue titanium and aluminum that had been assembled, since these metals can’t be welded, by a crafty system that was then hidden with minute diamonds on the again of every ingredient. Black aluminum was likewise the star of the “Optical Surprise” set, with its Vasarely-style Op Artwork really feel.

There have been additionally semiprecious stones like inexperienced chiroprase and even rock crystal for the “Frozen Seize” set. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t be De Beers with out some vital stones, just like the 20.1-carat pear-shaped diamond, one in all its Pure Works of Artwork set of gem stones, that accomplished this set’s necklace, or the smaller however no much less valuable 1.13-carat fancy intense pink diamond, starring as a removable pendant on the transformable “Nightfall Reflection” choker that may be separated into two bracelets.

However what actually caught the attention was a 111.95 tough stone, found in a De Beers mine in Botswana in 2016. It’s anticipated by home specialists to yield a “probably flawless” pear-shaped 50-carat diamond as soon as lower.

Seeing the potential of a tough stone was additionally on the coronary heart of Messika’s newest assortment, the place Valérie Messika was impressed by the mythology of historic Egypt.

The place to begin was a 110-carat stone, received by her brother Ilan Messika, at his first tender. She determined to buy the ensuing sequence of 15 stones, which features a 33-carat cushion-cut diamond.

It takes pleasure of place on the Akh-Ba-Ka (three historic Egyptian phrases that translate to “soul-personality-vital essence”) necklace, a 2,550-diamond piece that took some 1,000 hours to make.

Anybody wanting so as to add this piece to their assortment ought to be ready to buy the matching earrings and rings. Greater than a set, Valérie Messika sees the set as a metaphor for her household, “so they need to stick collectively, too,” she mentioned in a salon of the Hôtel de Crillon, which had been become an Egyptian temple for the event.

Whereas chopping the vital stones of a group from a single tough definitely makes for a hanging story, there’s one more reason why this captures the eye of knickknack homes.

“Due to the character of diamonds, it’s inconceivable to hint again the origin from a refined stone,” mentioned Van Cleef & Arpels’ CEO Nicolas Bos.

“It’s not a lot reacting to expectations or constraints, it’s actually that we’re in a world [where] it makes increasingly sense to be [as] open and clear as we are able to,” he continued.

So when the home was supplied the 910-carat tough Lesotho Legend diamond, named after its nation of origin, the prospect felt irresistible. It turned a part of a challenge that concerned Van Cleef working alongside the mine, the Antwerp-based chopping specialists in Antwerp, and even the GIA, leading to 67 diamonds with an authorized provenance.

“It [was] attention-grabbing, as a result of I’m unsure it’s going to work for 100% of diamonds sooner or later. However increasingly, that is the kind of philosophy and the kind of flows that we are attempting to prepare and help,” Bos famous.

However this was solely an attention-grabbing apart, for the reason that thought was all the time to construct “a group of knickknack, not of stones,” he added.

These diamonds have due to this fact been distributed throughout the “25 Thriller Set Jewels” of the primary chapter of the Legend of Diamonds assortment, which amply makes use of the home’s thriller setting that provides stones pleasure of place.

Among the many most hanging had been the ruby and diamond “Atours Mystérieux” (or mysterious adornments) necklace and its 79.35-carat oval diamond, which could be worn individually; the graphic sapphire, emerald and diamond “Chevron Mystérieux” with its trio of removable pendants, and one other diamond-and-ruby knotted ribbon one that may be taken aside to be worn as a pair of earrings, a river of diamonds or a deceptively easy pendant, amongst different choices.

This love letter to diamonds continued within the second “White Diamond Variations” chapter, which meanders by varied eras, taking cues from a Renaissance collar, the geometric designs of the Roaring ’20s or the perennial fascination of jewelers for the suppleness of textiles. As a completion, the oft-overlooked clasps had been right here labored as decorative designs in their very own proper.

Regardless of how valuable, wit in design can also be a should, in keeping with Mansvelt. Speaking concerning the “Ondes et Merveilles” assortment, which included poetic evocations of water currents and mermaids alongside aerial views of the shore or sailor tattoos, he mentioned they “had enjoyable.”

“A set ought to be joyous. That’s a aspect that’s vital to me, these little aspect steps, this playfulness that [balances out] being a significant excessive jeweler, being very historic, very severe and doing the very stunning however anticipated designs befitting a excessive jeweler,” the Chaumet CEO continued, noting that these extra humorous items opened the door to “one other public” that would embrace male shoppers, even though “it wasn’t [Chaumet’s] future to work males in excessive jewellery.”

Likewise at Anna Hu, a 55-carat heart-shaped Moussaieff diamond or a 265-carat rubellite is likely to be the middle of two of her “Enchanted Lily” brooches, but it surely’s the sudden delight of discovering delicate pink diamonds within the curl of a petal or glow-in-the-dark luminescent pistils that makes them, properly, shine.

Requested why shadows struck his fancy greater than jewels, Hermès artistic director for superb jewellery Pierre Hardy mentioned with amusing that it was by “spirit of contradiction.”

“Excessive jewellery is a really codified world, normed by worth, by measurement,” he defined. This triggered a want to take a look at the impact these valuable designs may produce, and he seen that “the extra you present the shadow, the extra you present the stone.”

Hardy due to this fact recast conventional stone cuts and “close to historic” shapes into graphic impressionist interpretations: a golden whip with a glittering blue imprint; the home’s “Chaîne d’Ancre” supplemented by inky duplicates; rings with rough-cut stones sitting on matching pavé-set swimming pools, or rows of inexperienced gems showing to drift, related solely by their slate grey shadows outlined in gold.

Dior, Louis Vuitton and Bulgari had been among the many homes that didn’t present in Paris, having unveiled their collections by vacation spot occasions and, within the case of the Italian label, a gala night in Paris attended by Priyanka Chopra, Anne Hathaway and Blackpink singer Lalisa Manobal.

After touring to Madrid with Jisoo and Yara Shahidi in June, Cartier took over the winter backyard of the Ritz to unveil an extra 47 items within the second chapter of its “Beautés du Monde” (“Beauties of the World”) assortment, together with the gorgeous “Ryu” set, that includes yellow diamonds lower right into a double-pyramid form that echoed the pure form present in uncut roughs.

At Pomellato, artistic director Vincenzo Castaldo imagined a summer time day from first gentle to the depth of night time in “A Stroll in Nature: From Dawn to Darkness,” the third “La Gioia” excessive jewellery assortment.

Talking of day by day, that’s precisely what CEO Sabina Belli imagined for these jewels, meant to “convey pleasure on an on a regular basis scenario,” particularly the “Summer season Storm” suite and its transformable necklaces.

“I’d hate to know {that a} client of ours has a chunk in a vault, sitting there [and] ready for the event,” she mentioned.

Sharp flip

The competitors between pure diamonds and their lab-grown counterparts is heating up:

• Antwerp-based superb jewellery model Unsaid took over the Ritz’s Salon d’Été to unveil its newest designs. The star of the present was the 39.5-carat Memory ring, composed of a graduated sequence of bubble-cut diamonds. Every of the 14 stones, going from one to 9.4 carats, was grown because of photo voltaic power to energy the chemical vapor deposition, or CVD, machines.

• For Louise de Rothschild and Keagan Ramsamy, cofounders of newly minted excessive jewellery home Mazarin, “every decade comes with a brand new method and lab-grown diamonds are a useful resource of our time,” the pair mentioned throughout an appointment at their new Faubourg-Saint-Honoré showroom. They set their European-made gems, together with coloured diamonds, in moral gold designs impressed, for now, by elephants and their symbolism.

Up to now, so superb

Simply earlier than Olivier Rousteing unveiled his designs for Jean Paul Gaultier, Balmain revealed its first superb jewellery designs. The Emblem line takes its cues from the home’s blazon and Rousteing’s seminal 2012 assortment, impressed by Fabergé eggs, whereas the Labyrinth vary revisits a repetitive frieze motif impressed by the intricate mazes of Renaissance gardens, utilizing the initials of home founder Pierre Balmain. The 20-or-so designs are made with moral recycled 18-karat gold and traceable gem stones.