Two years ago Victoire de Castellane designed the Archi Dior fine jewellery collection, then last year a jewellery collection in which each piece took the name of a couture line or an iconic dress, adapting a fabric’s special way of moving to the language of stones and precious metals.
The creative designer of Dior Fine Jewellery said: “I wanted to create each piece with the same mindset that Christian Dior had in creating dresses like an architect, as if the jewellery were made of fabric that is sculpted, gathered, belted or draped. In 1956, at a conference held at the Universite de la Sorbonne in Paris, Dior himself once said: “I wanted to be an architect; but as a courier I am obliged to follow the laws and principles of architecture.”
From his first show, he imbued his creations with their architectural elegance and also defined a style and a spirit. “ A dress is a piece of architecture, “ Christian Dior used to say. A peplum, a pleat or a drape defy gravity; the line and balance of a silhouette come from a precise handbag of fabric, constructed stitch by stitch, by sculpting the fabric to shape the curves of a woman’s body.
This year, Victoire de Castellane created eight pieces for the Archie Dior jewellery collection inspired by the Cocotte houndstooth dress from the spring-summer 1948 collection, with its volume swept to the back, as well as the Milieu du Siecle line from the autumn-winter 1949-50 presentation, based on the internal geometry of the fabrics.
The silhouette of the Cocotte design thus gave rise to an asymmetric ring and necklace on white gold and diamonds. And the flow of the Milieu du Siecle line’s curves appear in a gold and diamond necklace, in tow pairs of white gold and diamond earrings, as well as three rings in white gold and diamonds. And the flow of the Milieu du Siecle line’s curves appear in a gold and diamond necklace, in two pairs of white gold and diamond earrings, as well as three rings in white gold and diamonds and rose gold with or without diamonds. “I selected the strongest and the most interesting movements in order to adapt them in metal. It’s no longer a pleated dress, but the idea of a pleat,” explained the Creative Director of Dior Joaillerie.
