Translated by Bethszabee Garner

While diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires enchant high jewelry creations, hard, fine and ornamental stones such as amethyst, lapis lazuli, peridot, aquamarine and tourmaline increasingly illuminate unique pieces and jewelry lines.

These ultra-colourful gems allow for larger cuts and a wider range of colours than the four precious stones, while offering the advantage of price. The discovery of new stones, which have only been used for a few decades, has also contributed to their popularity, from tanzanite and tsavorite garnet, both of which appeared in 1967, to paraiba tourmaline, which is highly prized today but was only discovered in 1989.

It is now common to choose spinels or rubellites weighing over 30 carats to replace rubies that are now impossible to find in such weights, such as the 71.90-carat stone that Cartier has placed at the center of the Mochelys necklace in its Nature Sauvage collection. As long as the gem is of very good quality, jewelers have no problem doing so. Better a very beautiful aquamarine than an average sapphire, they explain at Place Vendôme. Major labels and independent jewelers now share an equal fascination for noble and rare stones.

They play matchmaker, celebrating unexpected and dazzling unions between precious, fine, and hard stones, offering a vast palette of colors in shades ranging from the lightest to the darkest. Pale pink, burgundy, lilac, grenadine red, yellow, brown, mint green, navy blue, and cardinal purple... anything goes!

And since every brand must defend its aesthetic, having a wide range of gems at its disposal increases the possibilities for standing out. Bvlgari is world-renowned for its legendary art of combining the most beautiful colored stones to create spectacular jewelry. The 150 creations in its exceptional Aeterna high jewelry collection intertwine sapphires, rubies, rubellites, turquoises, kunzites, green tourmalines, and emeralds in the Lotus Cabochon, Earth Song, Serpenti Chiseled, and Mosaic of Time creations.

Two tourmalines (27.70 and 16.26 carats), chosen by Van Cleef & Arpels for the Regina Montium necklace from the Le Grand Tour high jewelry collection, harmoniously blend their blue-green hues, accentuated by the sparkle of diamonds and the blue and mauve tones of sapphires, aquamarines, and tanzanites. aquamarines and tanzanites.

Inspired by the toile de Jouy fabric so dear to Monsieur Dior, Victoire de Castellane presents the figurative Diorama collection. This gives rise to scenes of rural life on the breastplates, where animals take refuge on gold leaves, as in a necklace in yellow and white gold, diamonds, emeralds, yellow sapphires, tsavorite garnets, white cultured pearls, sculpted chrysoprase and a Colombian emerald. The reflections of faceted topazes, garnets, tourmalines, kunzites, and aquamarines tell the story of the Milanese jeweler Buccellati.

It was in Buenos Aires, the favorite city of her grandfather Fred Samuel, that Valérie Samuel found the theme for her high jewelry collection, Monsieur Fred Ideal Light. Four sets represent four districts of the city: La Boca, renowned for its tango, with a toi et moi ring set with an orange spessartite garnet and a red spinel, like a dance step. Or Montserrat and its carnival, through a necklace with an incredibly fiery opal and a 3-in-1 ring, whose 9.4-carat tourmaline and opal and turquoise doublets recall the feathers of the costumes.

Hermès, first….

Since its creation in the late 1960s, Pomellato has been perfecting its art of color. With its fifth high jewelry collection, The Dualism of Milan, the house draws inspiration from the architecture of Milan, its hometown, for architectural creations saturated with color, such as the Barroco necklace in rose gold set with a Paraiba tourmaline, aquamarines, rubellites, tsavorites, tanzanites, mandarin garnets, green tourmalines, baroque-cut blue zircons and diamonds, and the fringed breastplate set with 238 gray, pink, blue, orange and purple spinels.

Piaget, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary, has also succumbed to colored stones. A 21.23-carat spessartite garnet set in rose gold is combined with an assortment of trapezoidal carnelian stones on a necklace that invites you to celebrate. Baguette-cut tourmalines set upside down flirt with tiger's eye and rutile quartz needles on a torque.

With the Les Formes de la Couleur collection, Pierre Hardy, creative director of Hermès jewelry, explores the theme of color for the first time. A thousand shades have inspired 58 pieces of fine jewelry. Here, a dozen rings literally represent primary and secondary colors. There is a round blue model made of sapphires and chalcedony; a square red one set with princess-cut garnets and rubies; and a triangular yellow one composed of beryls and sapphires.

The Supracolor choker is undoubtedly a nod to the cover of Pink Floyd's album The Dark Side of the Moon, with its triangle of quartz and diamonds and the multicolored rays emanating from it. The designer draws inspiration from psychedelic waves on rings and necklaces, creating joyful waves of 1,400 stones in a gradient effect.

While Tiffany & Co. continues to succumb to rare and majestic colored diamonds at the heart of its Blue Book 2024 collection, Tiffany Celeste also showcases tanzanite with seventeen gems that illuminate a necklace evoking peacock feathers. Not to mention aquamarine and amethyst, which electrify the jewelry sets for which artistic director Nathalie Verdeille drew inspiration from Jean Schlumberger's original creations.

A 56-carat stone!

The ultra-colorful theme is also reflected in rare diamonds. Louis Vuitton now adorns its fine jewelry creations with LV Monogram Cut diamonds. A cut in the shape of a Monogram flower with fifty-three facets and available in two variations (LV Monogram Flower and LV Monogram Star) depending on whether the ends are rounded or pointed, recalls the legendary monogram design. They punctuate the new creations in the Awakened Hands, Awakened Minds collection. In this new opus, another diamond takes center stage. A phenomenal 56-carat stone with apricot-pink reflections sits at the heart of the Cœur de Paris necklace. De Beers invites you on a precious safari through the Forces of Nature collection.

The majestic animals of the jungle and desert are imagined in abstract or figurative forms. We recognize the intertwined trunks of a mother elephant and her calf. Or the captivating gaze of a leopard on a torque, with marquise-cut diamonds edged with green diamonds and polished gold. Yellow, orange, and pink diamonds are chosen for giraffe tie necklaces, rhinoceros and buffalo pins, a large kudu bangle, and a yellow gold and diamond set with golden bead fringes as a mane.

Julia Roberts on the Red Carpet

A member of the corundum family, sapphire comes in every color imaginable, from colorless to black. Famous for its blue color, it is also used for its yellow and pink hues. A little-explored theme in jewelry, sport inspires Chanel's new high jewelry collection. Named Haute Joaillerie Sport, it satisfies a clientele on the lookout for truly rare stones, such as a set of five Kashmir sapphires. It took the house seven years to gather these stones for the Graphic Line jewels in order to create harmony in color, size, shape, and brilliance.

The Chaumet collection on display features a remarkable arrangement of blue sapphires from Ceylon and, in some cases, purple sapphires from Sri Lanka. The Signatures line brings together historic designs that have been given a contemporary twist, such as a choker necklace inspired by the lines of a tiara, a specialty of the house, set with a Ceylon sapphire weighing over 27 carats. Emeralds, which are mainly found in Colombia, come in only one color: green, ranging from shades of yellow to lagoon blue.

Their reflections mesmerize Caroline Scheufele, co-president and artistic director of Chopard's jewelry, who regularly adorns her jewelry with emeralds. In 2022, she pulled off a masterstroke by exhibiting a 1.22 kg rough stone in the Place Vendôme boutique. Today, it has been partially transformed into a set of fine jewelry unveiled in Los Angeles on the eve of the Oscars and worn by Julia Roberts. She charmed the Croisette last May with her Red Carpet 2024 collection inspired by fairy tales.

The 77 creations were a nod to the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. These treasures were also presented in Paris, featuring intense yellow fancy diamonds, heart-shaped emeralds, pigeon blood rubies, sapphires, and briolette-cut topazes.

Article written by Fabrice Léonard, featured in issue no. 9 of OniriQ magazine.