Little Wonders: The Trend for Scaled-Down Collections from High Jewellers

Is it a slumping economy, shifting tastes, or a sartorially sensitive moment? Rachael Taylor explores the current vogue for diffusion collections at luxury jewellery houses and asks why good things are now coming in even smaller packages.

When Karina Choudhrie launched her jewellery brand, she went straight in at the deep end in more ways than one. Creatively, she plumbed the depths of the ocean for inspiration for her Under the Sea Collection and also went all in on quality. This was not an accessibly priced first jewellery line from an emerging designer, but a seriously polished, heavyweight high jewellery collection. It was a somewhat backwards approach. Jewellery designers will often spend decades working up from silver designs to gold, semi-precious to precious, fine jewellery to high jewellery (should they ever reach that far). However, Choudhrie had already spent 15 years producing high jewellery for private clients, so it made sense that this is where she should start. Now, she’s exploring the other end of the market.