Sparkling Season: All You Need to Know About the Summer 2024 Jewellery Collections

Precious, one-of-a-kind and eye-catching. Presented during the summer Haute Couture shows in Paris to the lucky few - meaning loyal customers and selected press mainly, the exquisite Haute Joaillerie designs always make our hearts beat faster. Find out more about the most curious highlights in our jewellery report.

Dior, Diorama & Diorigami

As creative director of Dior Joaillerie since the very beginning in 1998, Victoire de Castellane is known for her fearless and experimental approach to jewellery design. This season, she decided to play with the animal theme mixing fairy-tale swans, foxes, fawns and squirrels made of semi-precious ornamental stones such as chrysoprase, turquoise, mother-of-pearl or malachite, with precious gems, tiny pearl beads and diamonds. The collection was shown to the clients of the Maison in Florence in May, and only a few sets made it to the summer presentation in Paris - most of the jewellery pieces were sold out on the first night when shown on the models during the jewellery catwalk show for the happy few. Real luxury is indeed hidden from prying eyes.

Messika, Midnight Sun Opus 2  

Parisian jeweller and diamond expert Valerie Messika always says that her favourite moment of the year is September Fashion Week in Paris, where her creations can be seen in action during a star-studded catwalk show. Every time guests are in for a surprise - whether it's a collection designed by Kate Moss, a live performance by Ava Max or the return to the catwalks of legendary supermodels like Naomi Campbell or Carla Bruni. Ahead of the show, during the summer presentation at Hotel de Crillon, Valerie Messika showed the second chapter of the Midnight Sun collection, featuring massive three-finger rings in white and yellow gold and diamond pavé necklaces that can be worn by both men and women, immortalised on the duo from the brand's new advertising campaign - model and philanthropist Natalia Vodianova and actor-star of the TV series "Emily in Paris" Lucien Laviscount.

Chopard, Red Carpet

Caroline Scheufele, Co-President and Artistic Director of Chopard, loves cinema, which is why she shows her novelties of haute jewellery during the Cannes Film Festival (she is also responsible for the design of the Palme d'Or, the festival's main prize). Traditionally, some of her creations can also be seen in July in Paris, where Scheufele presents them for the second consecutive year alongside her couture dresses. The idea is simple: every jewellery piece in the new collection dedicated to fairy tales of the world (there is a golden key, a unicorn ring, a necklace with magic acorns, and a ring with princess frogs) has its matching outfit. In other words, if a Chopard client wants to walk the red carpet in her newly bought jewellery piece on the very same night, the House will take care of her special moment from A to Z.

Van Cleef & Arpels, La Collection (1906-1953)

Instead of presenting the new collection, Van Cleef & Arpels decided to use the summer Haute Couture time slot to offer to the press, clients and friends of the brand a one-of-a-kind exhibition showcasing bestselling historical jewellery designs, rare artefacts and archival finds featured in the pages of the new book "La Collection Van Cleef & Arpels (1906-1953)", retracing the first fifty years of Maison's history. No worries, though, the new collection of Haute Jewellery will be presented later in autumn, in the meantime, Van Cleef & Arpels proposes to its top clients to place a special order if they like something at the exhibition.

De Beers, Forces of Nature

The new De Beers collection is inspired by the fauna of the African continent, where the diamond mines of the British jewellery house are located, paying homage to the beauty and magnetism of the animal kingdom. There are zebras crafted from white and black diamonds, lions with a mane of gold beads, giraffes adorned with spots made of chocolate diamonds, antelopes with the rarest grey diamonds and rhinos with chameleon diamonds that change colour depending on temperature and light.

The collection of fifty-eight pieces was shown to sixty of House's top clients in Paris at a gala dinner at the Palais Galliera - several of them were spotted at the event wearing the jewellery pieces they had just bought - two tie pins went straight away, as did a show-stopper necklace (its chains can be worn together or separately) with diamonds in different shades of brown and jewelled pompom tassels symbolising a giraffe's tail.

Prada, Eternal Gold

When Prada launched its jewellery line two years ago, the brand's main focus was not only on design, but also on how each piece of jewellery was created: the Italian house uses only ethical gold, and each piece comes with a digital certificate with all the details about its provenance. This summer the collection is enriched with gold transformable chains made of links reminiscent of the iconic triangular logo, that can be assembled and disassembled with each other, and worn together or separately as chokers, double necklaces, sotuar or bracelets.  

Chaumet, Chaumet en Scène and Collection Signatures

This season, the Parisian jewellery house Chaumet presented not one, but two Haute Jewellery collections at once. The first “Chaumet en Scène” is dedicated to creativity and is divided into three chapters: about dance, where tourmalines, rubellites and diamonds seem to dance a tango together; about music, where threads of sapphires, emeralds and diamonds intertwine like sheet music symbols; and about magic, where diamonds, rubies and pearl beads create optical illusions.

The second entitled “Collection Signatures” is built around the unique multi-faceted gemstones found by the house's gemologists: the “Joséphine Eclat Floral” necklace with a 27-carat centre sapphire from Madagascar, the “Soir de Fête” solitaire ring with an 11-carat diamond, or the “Joséphine Valse Impériale” earrings with a pair of Colombian emeralds of 5 carats are crafted to appeal to the most demanding collectors.  

Boucheron, Or Bleu

Traditionally, in winter the starting point of Boucheron Creative Director Claire Choisne's collections is jewellery from the Maison's archives, whereas in summer she is given a complete carte blanche. This means that Choisine can take as many risks as she needs, and her studio and the company's management will do everything possible to find a way to turn each of her most intricate ideas into reality, whatever it takes. This time, the main inspiration for the “Or Bleu” collection is the cascades and waterfalls of Iceland, which Claire discovered while travelling with her team. And some of the new techniques include the “Sable Noir” black sand necklaces and cuff bracelets, “Ondes” rings and necklaces made from a single piece of crystal encrusted with diamonds that echo the shape of the ripples when a pebble is thrown into the water, and the “Eau Vive” shoulder brooches inspired by the crests of the sea waves and 3D-printed in aluminium, and later covered in palladium for a shiny finish. All in all, when purchasing one of the pieces from the collection, you are not just becoming an owner of the precious gems and exquisite designs, you are investing in cutting-edge jewellery innovation.

Damiani, Mimosa

The Italian house Damiani traditionally does not launch new collections every year, instead they update the existing ones. Thus, this season the brand's jewellers have completed the best-selling Mimosa collection with two new sets with invisible mountings in white gold and snow-white diamonds, and in pink gold with diamonds, pink sapphires, rubies and giant red corals weighing a total of 75 carats.

Maison Belmont x Vincent Darré

A new player on the Parisian jewellery scene, Maison Belmont for their first Haute Jewellery collection, asked French decorator and jack-of-all-trades Vincent Darré to become a jeweller for the occasion. Darré treated his debut with his usual humour and sense of beauty: the fairy-tale characters of the sea world - think mermaids, dragons and god of the sea Neptune - from his drawings were transferred to the world of jewellery in the form of earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings. An interesting fact - here everything is in the details, while the front side of the pieces is crafted from coloured enamel and diamonds, the back side is embellished with funky gold patterns, hand-sketched by Darré.  

Mellerio, Jardin Pierreries

One of the oldest independent jewellery houses Mellerio this year is showing several new pieces inspired by its archive treasures from the early 19th century. For instance, this “Jardin Pierreries” necklace is adorned with roses in yellow, pink and green gold, diamonds and twenty-two purple amethysts with matching tone-on-tone sapphires.  

Text: Lidia Ageeva