The best high jewellery collections from Fall Couture Week 2018

The bi-annual Haute Couture fashion shows took place in Paris at the beginning of July 2018 and, as ever, brought with them some of the world’s finest high jewellery. With inspirations ranging from fairytales and ribbons to the works of artists Cy Twombly and Evans Mbugua, click through to see the lates fine jewels featuring some of the world’s rarest stones.

De Beers

On Rue de la Paix, De Beers presented four new sets celebrating the history of the diamond. Cupid uses contrasting diamond cuts to represent the duality of Love and Psyche; Ra celebrates the Egyptian sun god with yellow diamond paves; Celestia is inspired by the ancient belief that diamonds are the gods’ tears fallen from the sky; Vulcan, also dedicated to the Olympian god, features white diamonds mixed with rough and polished diamonds of different colours and cuts.

The four chapters forming Van Cleef & Arpels’s whimsical collection were taken straight from Brothers Grimm fairytales. The Twelve Dancing Princesses, The Golden Bird, The Three Feathers and Town Musicians of Bremen are paid homage, sometimes with subtle references (such as the Plumage d’Or yellow and white diamond necklace), sometimes more literally (a sapphire, lapis lazuli and diamond brooch with the Musicians engraved in rose gold).

Gabrielle Chanel’s beloved Coromandel screens – which she first discovered in the 1910s and are still found at Chanel’s apartment on 31 Rue Cambon – offered the inspiration for the maison’s latest collection, presented at the Grand Palais. Divided into three themes (floral, animal and mineral) Coromandel features 59 pieces, 24 of which one-offs, including a 37-carat tourmaline “Vibratione Minérale” ring.

Laurence Graff is a prominent art collector, so it's no wonder that the highlight from Graff’s latest high jewellery offering is a series of pieces inspired by the work of American artist Cy Twombly. The necklace, earrings and ring set (available in white diamonds or white diamonds and ruby) are designed to mirror the flow of the paint on Twombly’s canvases.

For her latest high jewellery collection (called Dior Dior Dior), Victoire de Castellane set out to recreate the sensation of lace on the skin – with intricate open work necklaces, cuffs, rings and her signature mismatched earrings. Centre stones – emeralds, yellow diamonds, sapphires and spessartine garnets - appear to be stitched on golden lace. The collection, alongside some spectacular archive pieces, in on view at the Musee d’art Moderne in Paris and open to the public between 6th-8th July.

Chaumet’s Trésors d’Afrique collection was inspired by an encounter with Kenyan artist Evans Mbugua, who guided the maison through a discovery of sub-Saharian Africa. Celebrating the continent’s landscape, fauna and traditions, the mesmerising pieces play with colour, geometric patterns and materials. Think ebony cuffs, a pink opal elephant brooch and a beaded necklace, bracelet and earrings set featuring emeralds, sapphire and red spinels.

‘Jeux de Rubans’ was inspired by the joyfulness of ribbons, which are a running motif throughout Mikimoto’s feminine collection. The most important pieces include a white gold, sapphire and diamond ring, topped by a rare natural Conch pearl, and a necklace featuring eights rows of Akoya pearls gathered with a white gold, sapphire and diamond flower featuring a large white South Sea cultured pearl.

Celebrating Boucheron's 180th anniversary this year, creative director Clare Choisne collaborated with French universities to create 3D-printed reproductions of real flowers and leaves. The jeweller then went a step further, deciding to incorporate real flowers into the collection via a process now patented by the house in which petals are 'stabilised' (without the addition of any pigment) and mounted on titanium. The flowers are then adorned with different centre stones, including topaz, rare violet sapphire, rubellite, tourmalines and spessartine garnets.