It’s a bit of a paradox, perhaps, to describe diamond jewellery as demure. But it is distinctly possible, with a bit of brilliant design, to imbue these precious gems with a spirit of understatement. And that sense of restraint is, at the moment, all over the style and cultural zeitgeist.
Well, it’s no longer just fashion that’s into this aesthetic. Some of the most recent jewellery collections—many of them fashion brands, granted—have fallen for this sensibility. The result: jewellery designs that, even as they are unquestionably exquisite, wear their luxury with not a shout but a whisper. A kind of tempered opulence, if you will.
And even though diamonds are often dubbed the king of gems, they are, in a way, best placed for subtlety. Save for fancy coloured versions, diamonds are after all prized for colourless clarity.
At Dior and Cartier, a revival and refreshing of past motifs. For the former, its emblematic cannage straw weave; and for the latter, the coffee bean that gained popularity in the 1950s on the French Riviera. At Louis Vuitton and Chanel meanwhile, these maisons are making subtle references to house signatures. The mechanism and workings of a trunk suitcase lock in the case of Vuitton, and the eternally desirable quilted motif in the case of Chanel.
Here, a look at four diamond jewellery collections that have elegant understatement in spades.
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My Dior by Dior
The cannage pattern is a signature motif of Dior, inspired by the straw braid pattern of Napoleon III chairs. These were the seats set out for guests when Christian Dior presented his haute couture collections at 30 Avenue Montaigne—a tender piece of house history that persists today.
This year, artistic director Victoire de Castellane has refreshed the fine jewellery collections with a line called My Dior that pays homage to the cannage. The braided pattern of those chairs is revealed as woven gold threads, richly textured and twisted, that mimic the texture and look of intertwined straw.
My Dior single ear jewel in pink and white gold with diamonds, $7,650.
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The collection debuts with a series of rings, earrings and bracelets in three shades of gold. Either as monochromatic versions, or alluring two-tone designs with a contrasting blade of gold set under the cannage, and more glamorous versions that are set with diamonds.
My Dior rings in yellow and white gold, $4,650; in pink gold, $4,550; in white gold with diamonds, $13,900; and in pink gold with diamonds, $13,000.
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My Dior bracelet in white gold with diamonds, price on request.
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The cannage pattern on My Dior jewels is enhanced with a gleaming, polished blade of gold set underneath the openwork mesh.
My Dior bracelets in pink and white gold with diamonds, $40,400; and in white gold with diamonds, $43,200.
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Tumbler by Louis Vuitton
In 2021, Louis Vuitton unveiled its Bravery collection of high jewellery. The collection’s narrative: the sheer guts it took of the house’s founder, aged 14, to leave his birthplace in a rural Jura village in Eastern France to head to Paris where his dreams awaited. In the city of lights in the mid-1800s, Vuitton trained as an apprentice trunk maker. In 1854, he launched his maison and created the first Louis Vuitton trunk.
The trunk is, in a sense, the heart and soul of the house of Louis Vuitton. And so jewellery artistic director Francesca Amfitheatrof mined the archetypal Vuitton steamer trunk as a source of inspiration. In that 2021 collection, there was a set of pieces dedicated to the surprisingly complex history of locks on Vuitton trunks. An underrated part of the maison’s savoir-faire was its innovation with locks—a necessity for secure travel.
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A defining innovation was the introduction of tumbler locks with serial numbers. That essentially enabled multiple pieces of luggage to be unlocked with a single key. This unsung, but vital, detail expresses the degree of thought the maison puts into its design. Not just as an aesthetic consideration, but as a luxury that enhances a lifestyle of travel.
Tumbler ring in white gold with diamonds, $18,900.
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Now, Louis Vuitton has expanded on the spirit of that story, and those high jewellery designs, to create a new range of white gold and diamond jewels simply and aptly named Tumbler. The collection is launching with five essential styles: a necklace, a ring, a mono ear cuff, a pair of earrings and a bracelet.
Instead of mimicking or recreating anything that is visually recognisable, such as a lock or clasp, the Tumbler line instead uses sharp geometric lines to evoke the sense of mechanical precision.
Tumbler bracelet in white gold with diamonds, $72,500.
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The Tumbler designs join two rows of diamonds set on rectangular sections of white gold. The corners of these are carefully shaped with openwork gaps that form the outline of the star-shaped flower from the house’s famous monogram pattern. It’s a blissfully subtle piece of branding, a touch of understatement which elevates the elegance of the designs.
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Grain de Café by Cartier
Last year, the Parisian jeweller Cartier revived one of its midcentury design icons: the humble coffee bean. First introduced by former creative director Jeanne Toussaint in 1938, the grain de café would become a cherished design in the 1950s and ’60s by tastemakers like Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco. The coffee bean itself is an unusual source of inspiration, but appropriate for Cartier. When it comes to nature, the maison prefers to draw from the unexpected—things like cacti, alligators, pine cones, tortoises. Instead of recreating mere sweetness or romance, the Cartier style is to imbue its references with a sense of liberation and to raise the ordinary to become beautiful.
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And so it is in the Grain de Café collection, where coffee beans are strung together in clusters on braided bands of yellow and white gold. “A symbol of the creative freedom of the maison,” explains creative director of jewellery and watchmaking Marie-Laure Cérède. “Grain de Café creates a new preciousness by playing with light, finishes and volumes,” she adds, resulting in a collection that “transcends a literal translation of nature and results in a multi-sensory design”.
Grain de Café ring in yellow gold and platinum with diamonds, price on request.
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The bean charms are carved with a gadroon pattern, set on their tips with diamonds, and individually crafted and mounted so that they jingle and move subtly to reflect light. A touch of detail that’s easy to miss: each bean is shaped with curves and arches so that even as they move, they are not knocking into each other.
Grain de Café earrings in yellow gold and platinum with diamonds, price on request.
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In the latest novelties, Cartier has upped the glamour factor in the Grain de Café designs with bean charms now crafted in platinum and fully set with diamonds. There is a new open collar necklace, a ring and a pair of earrings, which feature combinations of princess-cut and round brilliant diamonds that bring the sparkle.
Grain de Café necklace in yellow gold and platinum with diamonds, price on request.
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Coco Crush by Chanel
Trust Chanel to have a line of jewels that is perfect for stacking and a personalised mix. Coco Crush, though the youngest of Chanel’s fine jewellery collections, draws from perhaps the house’s most well-loved motif: the quilted pattern. It’s a design that joined the Chanel lexicon in 1955 with the debut of the 2.55 handbag and since then has become one of its most indelible emblems.
In the Coco Crush collection, the designs are deliberately simple and meant to be worn in potentially infinite combinations. There are seven new novelties that have joined the range and expanded the possibilities: three new rings with diamonds, three single hoop earrings and a two-tone single earring with diamonds.
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The new rings are offered in the house’s shade of beige gold, white gold and yellow gold, all crafted with prong-set diamonds.
For the first time, the diamonds have been set in each of the curved squares in the quilted motif, forming what is perhaps a Chanel take on an eternity ring.
Coco Crush rings in yellow gold with diamonds, $14,950; white gold with diamonds, $15,950; and beige gold with diamonds, $15,250.
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As for the ears, new single hoop designs introduce a wider range of styling options. Previously, Coco Crush mono earrings were only offered as ear cuffs, but the new designs are equipped with a hinged closure so they can be worn on the lobes. A fun novelty is the bicolour design as seen on a quilted hoop in beige gold with a French clip backing and a diamond-set cuff in white gold.
Coco Crush single earrings in yellow gold, $2,450; white gold, $2,650; and beige gold, $2,500.
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The novelties expand on a language of style and encourage stacking and mixing. But the distinctiveness of the quilted designs also means a single piece is just as chic. Take it from Gabrielle Chanel who once said that “elegance is refusal”. Either way, the choice is yours.
Coco Crush single earring in beige and white gold with diamonds, $5,050.
Vogue Singapore’s November ‘Nurture’ issue is now out on newsstands and available online.
