January’s Haute Couture Week in Paris, typically a peak moment for high-jewelry presentations, was quieter than usual this year. The sparser schedule may have been a simple matter of logistics; as some noted, the Doha Jewellery and Watches Exhibition took place shortly after, drawing attention from brands and collectors alike, and collections cannot be in two places at once. Additionally, some of the maisons are holding off on launching full collections until the July edition of Haute Couture Week, which is always the busier of the two events when it comes to jewelry. Still, the first quarter of the year was not bereft of high-jewelry launches, whether in the French capital or elsewhere.
In terms of trends, designers explored nature in its rawest forms, translated the fluidity of haute couture into metal and gems, and tapped into architecture and geometry for inspiration.
Nature is a constant motif in high jewelry, but this season, the approach shifted from delicate florals to wilder expressions — bamboo shoots at Chaumet, tree roots at De Beers, and creeping insects in Boucheron’s monochromatic collection.
Challenging how we wear high jewelry has been a recurring theme the past few seasons, driving red-carpet trends such as lapel brooches and the “backlace” — a long necklace worn backward down the spine. This season, the shoulder became a focus, with necklaces and brooches edging into this previously unadorned area.
Headwear also emerged as an important category, from Chaumet’s bamboo-inspired tiara to Louis Vuitton’s more modern take for the forehead: the geometric, trellis-like Élégance headband with LV Monogram Star-cut diamonds. Boucheron’s Untamed Nature line, meanwhile, included many hair jewels that doubled as brooches.
Graff – The Gift of Love
While Graff did not launch a full high-jewelry collection during the season, it did use the platform of Haute Couture Week to showcase a single masterpiece at its store in the Place Vendôme Ritz hotel. The Gift of Love necklace embodies the maison’s obsession with movement and light. The exceptional necklace features two diamond-encrusted sparrows in mid-flight — mythological companions of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, and thus synonymous with beauty and romance. One of the birds holds a pear-shaped, 13.51-carat, fancy-intense-yellow diamond in its beak. The necklace contains 2,247 round brilliant, pear and baguette diamonds, each custom-cut for the design. As the name suggests, the Gift of Love has been a labor of love for the past three years, demanding more than 6,000 hours of its craftspeople’s time.
“This creation disrupts the traditional notions of gem-setting, highlighting our unrivaled expertise.” – Francois Graff, CEO, Graff
Louis Vuitton – Awakened Minds
This follow-up to Louis Vuitton’s Awakened Hands collection continued the house’s historical journey through the craftsmanship of 19th-century France, merging industrial ingenuity with the maison’s signature boldness. Geometric chokers, colliers and cuffs recalled the Eiffel Tower’s iron lattice, while delicate trellis-like designs with LV Monogram Star-cut diamonds — wearable as hand jewels or across the forehead as an alternative tiara — reinforced the collection’s architectural essence.
The 50-piece offering, covering seven themes, was a celebration of engineering as much as jewelry, proving that beauty could be both structural and deeply personal. The high-jewelry line also included a capsule collection for men, which is new for Louis Vuitton. The designs included a diamond-set pendant with a compass, a pocket watch, and brooches, nodding to the trinkets that men of the 19th century would have carried.
“True to the ‘awakened’ ethos and [watch and jewelry artistic director] Francesca Amfitheatrof’s unique ability to interpret and render the era’s industriousness and craft, the collection pulses with creative acceleration.” – Louis Vuitton
Dior Joaillerie – Milly Dentelle
Dior Joallerie creative director Victoire de Castellane once again brought couture that took inspiration from the delicate art of lace. Scalloped gold edges, floral motifs, and filigree diamond frameworks paid tribute to Christian Dior’s love of embroidery, with colorful gemstones nestled like stitched embellishments. The collection’s floral undertones drew on the Dior founder’s gardens in Milly-la-Forêt.
This large presentation was haute couture in its purest form: exquisite, feminine, and deeply rooted in the maison’s fashion heritage.
“Imbued with an incredible lightness, the airy frames of necklaces, rings, bracelets and earrings seem to fade away, allowing diamonds, rubies, tourmalines and sapphires to radiate their shimmering nuances in complex compositions, evoking the interlacing of refined guipure.” – Dior
De Beers Jewellers – Essence of Nature: Chapter One
With Essence of Nature: Chapter One, De Beers Jewellers turned its gaze underground, drawing inspiration from tree roots and the raw materials that lie hidden beneath the earth. Green and fancy-yellow rough diamonds remained in their untouched form in these jewels, contrasting with polished white diamonds in sculptural arrangements across the 13-piece collection. The Embrace range featured twisting knife-edge settings that mirrored intertwining roots, while the Interlace collection wove pavé-set white-gold strands around fancy-yellow diamonds, evoking the intricate pathways of nature’s foundations. In addition to rough and polished diamonds, the collection included cuts of jet — the first time De Beers has used the fossilized wood in a high-jewelry collection.
“The new collection celebrates trees as a symbol of unwavering strength and support, through wearable works of art that spark a profound affinity with the raw beauty of nature.” – De Beers Jewellers
Chaumet – Bamboo
Chaumet continued its legacy of botanical jewelry with Bamboo, a 10-piece collection celebrating one of nature’s most resilient plants. Playing with the duality of strength and flexibility, the collection featured hand-engraved 18-karat-gold leaves and diamond-set stalks that utilized a mixture of cut-down and bead-and-bright settings. Tsavorite garnets and black Australian opals introduced bursts of green hues, echoing bamboo’s natural vibrancy. The collection was also a celebration of Asian culture, where bamboo has rich symbolism: It is associated with integrity, determination and modesty in China, and prosperity in Japan. The standout design? A plunging V-shaped, articulated bib necklace with a 13.19-carat black Australian opal. The line also included a graphic, modern take on the maison’s storied tradition of tiaras, as well as rings, brooches and earrings.
“Playing with paradoxes, it honors the identity of a plant that rises majestically toward the sky and is able to bend without breaking.” – Chaumet
Chopard – Insofu
The genesis of the Insofu collection was an extraordinary 6,225-carat rough emerald from Zambia. Insofu, the gem’s name, means “elephant” in the local Bemba language, inspired by the emerald’s original trunk-like form. Chopard acquired the rough stone and sent it to India, where it spent nearly a year getting transformed into cut and polished gems totaling 850 carats — enough to adorn the 15 pieces in the Insofu high-jewelry line.
The collection is varied, containing multi-strand necklaces, a pearl-studded choker, classic emerald and diamond earrings and rings, a high-jewelry watch, and a special elephant pendant as a nod to the gem. The sale of the pieces will support Elephant Family, a charity dedicated to human-wildlife coexistence.
“In every stone lies a story, and my role is to listen and honor the natural magic they carry as treasures from the earth. With the Insofu collection, it was about respecting this inherent beauty. I chose the finest-quality stones from the heart of the emerald, pairing them with diamonds, pink sapphires, and pearls.” – Caroline Scheufele, Co-president and artistic director, Chopard
Cartier – Nature Sauvage
With the latest additions to Nature Sauvage, Cartier returned to its most iconic muse, the panther — but this time, the beast prowled through a wilder, more geometric landscape. The Panthère Canopée necklace captured the feline lounging in graphic diamond-set foliage, curled around a 26.53-carat Ceylon sapphire. The Panthères Versatiles necklace, meanwhile, offered dynamic styling options: Featuring diamonds, onyx and a 10.10-carat Zambian emerald, it could transform from collier to shoulder jewel to bracelet. Other animal-themed offerings included a kingfisher ring with a cushion-cut, 15.21-carat tourmaline; a coral reef necklace with carved emeralds that mimicked sea urchin shells; and a tiger necklace with yellow, orange, brown and white diamonds.
“A new perspective of the Cartier fauna to surprise, amaze and bring modernity by way of unexpected encounters. Expressive jewelry which showcases the attitudes and personality of an animal, its vitality. Like an actor, it plays with graphics, with volume and optical illusions, blending into an imaginary landscape. This is the spirit of Nature Sauvage.” – Jacqueline Karachi, Director of high-jewelry creation, Cartier
Boucheron – Untamed Nature
Boucheron creative director Claire Choisne’s 28-piece Untamed Nature collection took the maison’s affinity for the natural world and stripped it down to its rawest elements. White gold, diamonds, rock crystal, onyx, and mother-of-pearl formed a notably monochrome canvas for beetles, moths, and hardy plants such as thistles, lingonberries and ivy, which crept across the body almost aggressively.
The collection encourages innovation in styling, with a focus on brooches that are also wearable as hair jewels, and bracelets that can serve as shoulder adornments. The Trio d’Insectes set of three jewels — a bee earring and two hair ornaments, respectively a ladybug and a fly — introduces lifelike migration. Most of the Untamed Nature jewels are transformable, with flora necklaces that have removable stems one can use as brooches.
This presentation was high jewelry with an edge, in which nature was not just beautiful, but haunting and alive — and designed to encroach beyond traditional jewelry placements.
“New creations show nature asserting itself and taking over the body, blurring the lines between the human form and its surrounding ecosystem.” – Boucheron
Main image: Louis Vuitton Vision necklace in yellow gold, platinum, diamonds, and yellow sapphires. (Louis Vuitton)
