The American jeweller Tiffany & Co. has been enamoured with the legacy of its legendary designer Jean Schlumberger. For its second Blue Book of high jewellery designed by chief artistic officer Nathalie Verdeille, the collection centres on adapting and rediscovering the perspective of Schlumberger on the celestial. The Blue Book Céleste collection for 2024 will be unveiled in three parts over the course of the year.
The summer, and middle, edition hones in on three themes that have captivated the human imagination over centuries: peacocks, shooting stars and flames. Each of these is a miracle of nature and has enthralled viewers enough to spur countless fantasies and fictions.
The peacock, for its part, was once considered nearly mythical in the Western imagination. The colours and iridescence of its plumage was such an exotic, awe-inspiring visage that the bird itself—very much real—set fascinations alight. In the hands of Tiffany & Co., the peacock is rendered in jewels that mix a combination of diamonds, green tourmalines and tanzanites to evoke its feathers. Tanzanite, in particular, is something of a legacy gemstone signature to Tiffany & Co.—the brand was one of the earliest to introduce and popularise the blue gem to the world in 1967.
The Peacock brooch reinvents an archival Schlumberger design in platinum and yellow gold, its plumage set with a centre tanzanite weighing over 13 carats framed by calibré-cut green tourmalines, a rubellite accent in its eyes, green tourmalines and blue sapphires dotting its breast, and a bevy of brilliant and baguette-cut diamonds on the bird and its crest.
In the shooting stars and flames themes, archival Schlumberger jewels inform the designs. The former combines elements of star and ribbon designs to synthesise new shooting star forms. Glittering trails of diamond-set gold are accented with deep, luscious amethysts.
Flames, meanwhile, elevate the fire of Schlumberger’s Tiffany Flame designs into solar flares. The essence of this primal source of heat, life and vitality is evoked in the interplay of white and yellow—through contrasting gold and platinum mountings and settings; and most notably through the pairing of white and yellow diamonds. “Boundlessly imaginative,” describes Verdeille in collection notes, “for those seeking a cosmic presence in their personal world.”
The September ‘Kitsch’ issue of Vogue Singapore is now available online or on newsstands.
