PARIS — Good things come to those who wait.
Three years after unveiling the 6,225-carat raw emerald named Insofu, Chopard will be presenting in Paris the eponymous high jewelry collection resulting from this monolith that weighed 1.22 kilograms.
“It was really about discovering as you go because basically, we had to wait until we had a certain amount of stones together to starting of any collections,” said Chopard copresident and artistic director Caroline Scheufele.
A first capsule, comprising a ring, earrings and a necklace designed with input from house ambassador Julia Roberts, was debuted at last year’s Oscars.
What set the wheels in motion for the second chapter was the appearance of her favorite cut. “Finally, I got a heart — I love them — and it was a beautiful heart that came along,” Scheufele said.
This 11-carat stone became the diamond-surrounded star of an important cocktail ring, one of 15 high jewelry pieces set with the cuts obtained from Insofu, which yielded 850 carats in total. Those that “spoke” to Scheufele were used here and she hasn’t decided how to use the remaining cut gemstones.
Chopard Insofu high jewelry ring in ethical 18-carat white gold set with an 11.17-carat heart-shaped emerald and brilliant-cut diamonds.
Another key design in the collection is an elephant pendant, which features some 50 carats of pear-, oval- and brilliant-cut emeralds as well as 2 carats of diamonds. It is a nod to the raw emerald’s name, which means “elephant” in the Bemba language spoken in the region around the Kagem mine in Zambia.
There’s also a wide cuff with delicate emerald-studded leaves that also calls for emerald-cut tsavorites and pearls and a singular set comprising four necklaces that includes a diamond choker featuring a 2.50-carat square-cut emerald and another festooned with pink sapphires that has a 15.53-carat octagonal emerald.
While there isn’t a direct stylistic throughline in the 15 jewels presented Thursday, the ensemble is meant as an “embodiment of the joie de vivre so vividly portrayed by Francis Scott Fitzgerald in ‘The Great Gatsby,’” according to collection notes.
In addition to the emerald-set jewels that Scheufele imagined, there are five looks from her Caroline’s Couture line, all imagined to complement the jewels.
Take a short corseted number featuring black silk organza hand-embroidered with pearls, stones, sequins and rhinestones in tones of green. While it came paired with the elephant-inspired set, the designs were imagined to be worn with any of the Insofu jewels, as the rest of the lineup.
The necklace set would go equally well with the long sweetheart neckline bustier gown in white jacquard, or an outfit composed of a crisp white blouse in lightweight taffeta paired with a floor-length mermaid skirt embroidered in a half-moon motif.
Another design is a fluid draped silk gauze dress that looked like northern lights draped around the body — with or without jewels, it’s a standout.
Chopart Insofu high jewelry pendant in ethical 18-carat white gold and platinum set with emeralds and diamonds.
Courtesy of Chopard
Not only does Scheufele find the process of creating jewels and silhouettes together interesting, “clients love that it’s something very unique, very special, very niche,” she said.
Since the couture line launched at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, it’s been booming, so much so that she’s been advised to stop taking orders, she quipped. But there’s no indication she’s taking that to heart. There have been trunk shows in the U.S. and Macao and a larger event is planned for Qatar in the runup to this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
The team under Fridtjof Linde dedicated to designing Caroline’s Couture has grown to four. And they have their hands full: for the next Red Carpet high jewelry collections, Scheufele said she’d matched the number of dresses to the jewels — 78, after the film festival’s number of editions so far.
For now there are no plans to give Caroline’s Couture a formal retail presence in the form of flagships, but Scheufele is considering “a cute little place in Paris as a base,” she said.
Designs from the Insofu collection from Caroline’s Couture.
Courtesy
“There’s a lot of potential,” she said. “It’s not at the level of high jewelry yet — in terms of sales, there’s a long way to go — but it’s growing and getting a lot of fun and pleasure out of it.”
Plus it’s also providing another path into the growing Chopard galaxy of jewelry, watches and hospitality. At a recent event, Scheufele found herself next to a “very fancily dressed” man. “He doesn’t like watches, just doesn’t wear them,” she recalled. But after seeing her tuxedo offer, introduced last year, he ordered one.
“Afterwards, I said that I could invite him to [Chopard’s headquarters] and once he had a look at the watchmaking ateliers, maybe he’d change his mind about watches,” she said.
