In keeping with previous collaborative jewellery ventures with Kim Jones, artistic director of Dior Homme, this week, Victoire de Castellane presented a further one-off high jewellery piece, a brooch, at the Dior Menswear S/S 2025 show. The house artistic director of jewellery drew on bright, silk-grosgrain ribbon references from her ‘Dior Print’ 2022 high jewellery story, and the nature motifs of this year’s ‘Diorama & Diorigami’ collection. A new watch is also released, the Dior Grand Bal Tie & Dye, with miniature petals in gradated pink, orange, yellow and lilac gemstones on the dial.
While the bracelet presented by de Castellane and Jones during the Winter 22/23 men’s collection had a classic art deco feel, the jewellery designer's joyful nature shines when she has the freedom to let her childlike design tendencies take flight. One-off design opportunities, such as her Kim Jones collaborations, offer that. The brooch, then, which sees little yellow birds flit around a flutter of pastel ribbon, has a gentle humour reminiscent of the house-cleaning scene in Disney’s groundbreaking 1937 film, Snow White.
The birds, sunlit in yellow gold and paved with diamonds, frolic around an altogether more serious 58.85 carat aquamarine, while the ribbon’s underside is highlighted in a gradation of blue sapphires. The cartoonish appeal of the brooch is delightfully on point, as its light frame and subject are a welcome antidote to the hefty-brooch-pinned-awkwardly-on-lapel look that permeates men's red-carpet styling.
Of course, you might argue that brooches are genderless, but as is the case in high jewellery design, proportions really matter. A high jewellery brooch, then, must be carefully integrated into a look, not take it over like a misplaced gimcrack. But Victoire de Castellane comes into her own when toying with the balance of precious metals and stones in jewellery design, often to delightfully skewed effect. And so it is with her latest high jewellery offering in collaboration with Kim Jones.
