About the Dior jewelry collection - Ekaterina Istomina

Victoire de Castellan, designer of the jewelry division of the house of Dior, presented her new collection. Her show, which took place in Paris on March 15, was reminiscent of the “salon receptions” of Christian Dior himself in his first, now historic boutique on Avenue Montaigne. Starring six French beauties. The first beauty writes a love letter. The second one is doing a manicure. The third is knitting a scarf. The fourth sits back, twirling her curls around her manicured finger. The fifth one is thoughtfully putting together a puzzle with an image of some glossy Loire castle. Six takes apart and reassembles a jewelry box. Nice French music is in the air - something like the opuses of Michel Legrand, but with electronic processing. The smells of coffee and cinnamon. The sun's rays penetrate through the glass of the shop windows. French bourgeois siesta.

All these curvaceous beauties certainly have rings on their fingers from the new Eloge de la Paresse (the name of this collection can be loosely translated as “Long live laziness!”). Madame designer herself, dressed in the total look Dior, in her emotional opening speech noted: “I would like you all to feel this moment in life when life seems to stop running, and then silence sets in, a delightful kingdom of laziness and idleness ".

In the new collection, Victoire de Castellan did not deviate one step from her favorite themes and techniques. Eloge de la Paresse is a collection of large and small precious flowers made of white and yellow gold, precious and semi-precious stones and colored enamel. Again and again - flower rings and flower earrings. On the one hand, these timeless signature themes couldn't be more relevant right now - lush floral style is in fashion this year. But, on the other hand, it would be difficult to demand from Victoire de Castellan any changes in the plot familiar to her.

Despite the fact that the designer’s track record also includes non-floral collections, such as the diamond gothic line Fiancee du Vampire, the success of Victoire de Castellan’s seven-year work in such a high position is associated precisely with the creation of precious flowers. It is generally accepted that she managed to successfully translate the legendary “Monsieur Dior’s garden” into jewelry. "Monsieur Dior's Garden" is associated not only with his famous "flower woman" philosophy. This garden actually existed - it was grown around the Dior family home in Deauville by the designer’s mother, Madame Madeleine Dior, a dreamy, expressive bourgeoisie and an avid flower grower.

The connection specifically to the Dior family garden also explains the fact that any item - earrings or ring - in Eloge de la Paresse bears the additional name “Diorette” (La Diorette). As in the case of the once very popular Diorissimo perfume, the surname Dior here becomes the root of the word, to which diminutive suffixes are attached.

The “Diorette” rings are created according to the standard design for Victoire de Castellan - a large central stone in a noticeable cut (amethysts, colored sapphires or aquamarines), which is buried in a large flower bed. Flowerbeds in different Victoire de Castellan collections may differ slightly from each other. These can be just flowers (cute wildflowers, expensive garden flowers or growing in pots) or flowers with various inhabitants of Monsieur Dior’s garden, for example with insects - butterflies or ladybugs. For the Eloge de la Paresse collection, Victoire de Castellan chose the second option - the flowers are complemented with cows and butterflies. The jewelry is made of white or yellow gold, in addition to amethysts, colored sapphires or aquamarines, there are also white diamonds, tangerine garnets, citrines, and tsavorites, which are popular today. For freshness, the designer added colored enamel to the jewelry, which covers flower petals, wings of butterflies and ladybugs.

The editor of the weekly supplement to Le Figaro told me that in Paris, the titanic jewelry works of Victoire de Castellan enjoy considerable success not with young French ladies, but with very young girls who choose an expensive life in the Harley-Davidson style. It turns out that Dior jewelry is worn not with a pink cashmere blouse, but with leather jackets, high leather boots, studded with nails, and torn T-shirts. This makes these jewelry flowers look even more delicate.

Orders for the new Victoire de Castellan jewelry collection are being accepted from this week at the Moscow Dior boutique.

Monsieur Dior's new garden