Architectural Digest Loves Dior & Chanel
By Hannah Martin, Mayer Rus, Sam Cochran, Mitchell Owens, John Wogan, and Madeline O’Malley
August 11, 2023
Inspiration: Dior’s new high jewelry celebrates the designer’s love of the garden
When Victoire de Castellane thinks of flowers, they’re always in full bloom. “Personally, I find it very sad that flowers fade after three days, so I like to freeze them in jewelry,” says the creative director of Dior Fine Jewelry. Blossoms have been her aesthetic leitmotif for more than 20 years, echoing the very first dresses that Christian Dior unveiled in 1947, the voluminous skirts transforming wearers into femmes-fleurs [dream maidens]. De Castellane’s latest cultivation is Les Jardins de la Couture, 170 sparkling ornaments—including three watches—calculated to be the largest high jewelry collection ever introduced by the division.
One of the most entrancing suites in the new range is the Galon Fleuri (Floral Braid) pink-sapphire set: a polychrome embodiment of eternal spring that comprises a necklace, a timepiece, earrings, and a ring. Their woven forms are dappled with green lacquer leaves and studded with gem petals so vivid that they might as well be neon. “Depending on the collection, the stones I use can be bright and saturated or pastel,” explains de Castellane. Flowers were also a passion for Christian Dior the man, from the rose-scented acreage at Villa Les Rhumbs (the art dealer turned fashion designer’s childhood home in Normandy, now the Musée Christian Dior) to the paradisiacal grounds of his beloved Le Moulin du Coudret, near Milly-la-Forêt.
Small wonder that a fragrant red hybrid tea rose bears his name. Those gardens are just some of the many sources of botanical inspiration for de Castellane. That being said, the designer’s annual creations would boggle the mind of any botanist. De Castellane candidly admits that she deals in reveries rather than replicas, unclassifiable blossoms that she entrancingly describes as “imaginary flowers, like new species.”
dior.com —Mitchell Owens
Inspirational Shops: Chanel’s dazzling new Rodeo Drive boutique celebrates the house’s long-standing ties to Hollywood
In 1931, movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn lured a skeptical but curious Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel to Hollywood with an invitation to dress his films’ leading ladies. Goldwyn believed that the pioneering couturier, already a succès fou in Europe, would confer an aura of modern Continental glamour that would give his pictures an edge over the competition. Nearly a century later, Tinseltown and the venerable French fashion house remain intimately connected, twin mirrors of beauty and enchantment. In early May, Chanel reaffirmed that bond with a star-studded cruise show at Paramount Studios and the opening of a sensational new boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.
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