It’s a European grand tour for fashion house Louis Vuitton, who earlier this week presented its Cruise collection in the Palais des Papes, a 14th-century palace in France. The Maison keeping in theme with the ready-to-wear show, relocated to the Gothic-style castle of Castell de Bellver to present Virtuosity, its 110 piece collection of one-of-a-kind high jewellery pieces that were chapters of an artistic manifesto.
The round shape interior of the castle, dating back to the 13th century and was once the residence to the Kings of Mallorca, served as the runway to the Haute Joillerie collection. As a live orchestra performed, the models who were wearing made-to-measure looks created by Nicolas Ghesquiere walked around the seated audience showcasing the collection.
The collection itself, which is split into two worlds, were equally distinct and unique and truly showcased the Louis Vuitton jewellery makers outstanding creativity, and technical craftsmanship.
In part one The World of Mastery, the Savior necklace sets the tone of the craftsmanship featuring a hypnotic 30.56k triangle-cut Australian black opal, surrounded by sharp geometric shapes and meticulous emerald beadwork dedicated to the chevron ‘V’ shape of the brand’s logo and finished off with a 28.01 carat emerald drop, which took over 1500 hours to complete.
Within this world there was also the Protection chocker featuring a 3.02k pearl drop, and the Keeper suite- a personal favourite, which features unisex brooches that incorporates the all-seeing eye design with sapphire, alexandrite stones and an impressive 32.85 carat Sri Lankan Chrysoberyl.
As we move to part two of the story, The World of Creativity, we reach new spectacular heights. Chokers are articulated to mould the wearer’s neckline, and to move with it. Gemmological combinations of tourmalines, sapphires and rubellites are set and contrasted on ropes of yellow gold. 114 luminous pearls, not previously seen in a Vuitton High Jewellery line before, adorned a dynamic rope inspired necklace Connection, which also consisted of 2,000 diamonds.
There was no shortage of spectacular moments, but the grand finale Eternal Sun was a breathtaking 46.13k yellow diamond dominated necklace shaped into an infinity-like spiral. Set with over 27 yellow diamonds, it took Louis Vuitton’s gemmologist seven years to source enough colour-matched diamonds to set into the necklace, and suspended at the centre to complete the piece was a 14k yellow diamond.
A true ode to craft and creativity indeed.
Molly Haylor is a fashion stylist and creative consultant based in London, and is currently the style director of Grazia Magazine.