Dior à Versailles, Côté Jardins: A Return to Versailles with New High Jewellery Collection

In 2016, the French fashion maison Dior released one of the most fascinating high jewellery collections in its history: Dior à Versailles. The designers produced jewels that were a unique illustration of the royal Palace of Versailles as a symbol of luxury and the art of a French aristocratic lifestyle. During Paris Haute Couture week this year, the maison presented over 60 pieces as part of Victoire de Castellane’s new collection that continues the same theme: Dior à Versailles, côté Jardins.

The architectural flourishes of the royal estate do not operate independently; they work organically with the various and numerous botanical features to which this new Dior à Versailles, côté Jardins collection is dedicated. Here, the frenzy of extravagance that nature boasts is no less striking than the opulence, variety and elegance of the landscape. The parks, the flowerbeds, even the thickets, as well as the many ponds, fountains, statutes and pathways were the real Victoire de Castellane’s inspiration.

To put together the new high jewellery collection, Dior’s Creative Director turned her attention to the architecture of the Palace of Versailles from a bird’s eye view. Ultimately, there turned out to be a lot geometry which was reflected in the Trianon necklace, bracelet and ring, as well as the Orangerie earrings and many other pieces.

I wanted, with every jewel, a rediscovery of the paradoxical combination of nature and culture, so characteristic of Le Nôtre’s work and of the park at Versailles. – Victoire de Castellane

In one part of the Versailles gardens, the trees have been planted to create, if looked at from above, a silhouette of a seashell. This motif has found its way into the Bosque de la Salle necklace, rings and bracelets that are made from yellow gold with emeralds, sapphires, diamonds and rock crystal. Incidentally, this collection is the very first time Dior has used this type of quartz in order to cut out delicate seashell elements. Some of them have been polished to be as transparent as possible, as in the case of the Bassin aux Nymphéas bracelet; others have been left matte, as with the Bosquet de l’Encelade bracelet.

Looking through the jewels on display, I mentally wandered along those pathways that were marked on the jewels with succulent green emeralds. The excesses of diamonds conjure memories of dappled sun rays on the fountains’ clear waterfalls, whilst the gentle pale blue shades of sapphires and tourmalines embody the calm smooth surfaces of the ponds. Multi-coloured sapphires recall the riot of colour and open shapes of the vibrant flowerbeds. The droplets of rubies, placed in fancy gold frames, are unmistakably the vigorously blooming rose bushes, wondrously enveloping the gold rim with their stems.

Dior à Versailles, côté Jardins incorporates all the codes of the brand: it combines, in single pieces, a striking mixture of bright colours, complex structures, and the use of stones that have been cut in completely different ways. You have probably already noticed that Dior’s collections almost always include mismatched Toi&Moi earrings which look completely different but are intended to be worn together. Victoire de Castellane is dedicated to this type of jewellery, calling these earrings “a couple” because, different those they are, they, like two lovers, are made for each other.

Every piece in this new high jewellery collection seems to have captured the most beautiful and sumptuous parts of the Versailles grounds for eternity. This idealised Versailles shall never wither, forever granting those that surround it feelings of joy and delight.