Milly-la-Fôret is the inspiration for the latest haute joaillerie collection from the house of Dior, Milly Dentelle. It is named after a small town near Paris noted for its flower gardens, where the young Christian Dior spent time with his beloved mother Madeleine. In adulthood, he would retreat there after his fashion shows.
For over 25 years Victoire de Castellane has been the creative director of the brand’s fine jewellery division and her abiding love of jewels dates back to disassembling her mother’s earrings at the age of five and, at just twelve, melting down communion medals to create a ring with two amethyst hearts which she still wears. boundless imagination underpinning her work was encouraged by the late Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel where she oversaw the costume jewellery collection for fourteen years. Since 1999, her affinity with precious and semi-precious stones has come to the fore with bold, fantastical creations honouring the life and legacy of the legendary designer whose name is still above the door.
The new Dior Milly Dentelle emulates the delicacy and lightness of lace, as in this floral suite in rose gold and platinum with white and yellow diamonds of different cuts.
The new high jewellery Dior Milly Dentelle Collection celebrates the spirit of Parisian couture and specifically focuses on “dentelle” (lace) work. Seventy-six exceptional pieces employ white, yellow and pink gold like the delicate elements of lace to showcase diamonds, rubies, tourmalines, pearls and sapphires in timeless expressions of multi-faceted femininity. For the designer though, the physical expression of her vision is not tethered to a particular gender. Quoted in Dior Joaillerie: The Dictionary of Victoire de Castellane, she says, “People tend to forget the seductive or erotic power of a jewel whereas, for me, that remain very powerful, as much for a man as for a woman in fact.”
Predating the current collection was her tribute to Dior’s “cannage” motif – a traditional geometric pattern of squares and diagonals reminiscent of the caning technique on the rattan chairs on which Dior seated his guests at his salon shows in 30, Avenue Montaigne as early as 1947.
Dior Milly Dentelle necklace in pink gold with diamonds, rubellite, pink sapphires, pink spinels, tsavorite garnets, white cultured pearls and mother-of-pearl.
It requires an extraordinary dedication to be able to interpret and reinvent the codes of any designer so successfully for so long but, for de Castellane, the enduring appeal of tradition married to her own slightly surreal – even eccentric – world view has created a magnificent outpouring of creativity. In her own words, her work is “like playtime” in which she is able to immerse herself in fantasy and wonder and then see those wonderments embodied in real, sparkling jewels.
Author: Maurice Mullen
Show Comments +