High Jewelry Takes a Road Trip

By Tina Isaac-Goizé

Reporting from Paris

July 2, 2023

Not long ago, the high jewelry presentations on and around Place Vendôme brought the semiannual couture shows to a dazzling finale.

This summer, however, many of the biggest fireworks already have happened, with brands from Bulgari to Van Cleef & Arpels introducing their most exclusive collections in exotic locations.

Major jewelry makers are increasingly adopting a fashion industry-like practice, choosing their own dates for elaborate events and then flying in top customers, influencers and editors for a couple of days of cocktails, canapés and cabochons. It all looks quite a lot like the extravagant cruise (or resort) presentations that have returned with a vengeance since the pandemic waned.

While the link between a high jewelry collection and the setting in which it is revealed can be tenuous, Luca Solca, a luxury analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in Switzerland, wrote in an email that such events let brands pamper clients “beyond any level we know.”

“This is part and parcel of a deliberate escalation that mega-brands are driving to leave competitors in the dust,” he added. “You cannot afford a landmark flagship, major itinerant shows and high-profile V.I.P. entertainment at the four corners of the world? Then you cannot play in the premier league.”

This season the uber-luxury journeys started in May with Bulgari unveiling its Mediterranea collection in Venice.

The house took over the 15th-century Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel for a week, installing oriental carpets, jewel-tone custom fabrics by the Venetian company Rubelli and sculptures by the glassmaker Venini to create a lavish showroom. An interactive jewel-making experience driven by artificial intelligence was part of the entertainment, and NFTs were sold with jewels like the Yellow Diamond Hypnosis, a white gold serpent necklace coiling around a 15.5-carat pear-cut fancy intense yellow diamond.

The main event was a gala at the Doge’s Palace to honor the 75th anniversary of Bulgari’s signature Serpenti design, a celebration that began late last year and is to run through the first quarter of 2024. The brand ambassadors Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Lisa Manobal of the K-pop group Blackpink joined guests on the palazzo’s balcony for a gem-laden runway show orchestrated by the fashion editor and stylist Carine Roitfeld.

Of the 400 jewels in Venice, 90 carried a price tag of more than one million euros, the brand said. And while Bulgari declined to comment on sales, the event seems to have been a social media hit: Three posts by Ms. Manobal chronicling her “unforgettable night in Venice” got more than 30.2 million likes while two posts of Zendaya in the Yellow Diamond Hypnosis totaled more than 15 million.

This season both Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton presented their largest high jewelry collections to date.

For its 170-piece collection called Les Jardins de la Couture, Dior created a runway on June 3 on a garden path at Villa Erba, the former Lake Como home of the Italian film director Luchino Visconti, and sent out 40 models wearing gems in floral themes by Victoire de Castellane, the house’s creative director of jewelry, and couture outfits by Maria Grazia Chiuri, the creative director of Dior women’s collections.