Between the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, and the Grammys, it’s been quite an awards season where the jewelry is concerned, and we’re excited to tune in on Sunday for the grand finale (the Academy Awards). Hopefully it will be more of the same—bold choices you don’t need a macro lens to see (thank you, Gaga!), indie designers, and a general vibe of more is more—with a few surprises to keep us on the edge of our seats while frantically searching Instagram for credits.
One high jewelry maison with more than a few great options for the evening’s red carpet is Piaget, which recently unveiled 17 new pieces during Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week. And it’s already off to a great start, having had its jewelry appear on brand ambassador Jessica Chastain and Black Panther star Michael B. Jordan at the Golden Globes (the latter also wore Piaget at the SAG Awards).
The Swiss jeweler has expanded its Sunlight Escape collection, with new introductions added to each of its three “chapters”: Warming Lights, Exalting Sights, and Dancing Nights. The reigning inspiration remains the same: a frozen, snowy, mysterious landscape illuminated by the glistening sun of a winter sky and the theater of colors that can emerge after dark, from a constellation of stars to, if you’re lucky, the majesty of the aurora borealis.
The new jewels express these themes with a unique design vocabulary.
In Warming Lights, the Limelight White Sun cuff watch is an homage to winter sunlight across a clear Arctic sky with its linear rays of hand-engraved white gold and mixed-cut diamonds around a central mother-of-pearl dial.
A hauntingly beautiful sautoir mixes the iridescence of opals, the luster of South Sea pearls, and the sparkle of diamonds to form the centerpiece of Exalting Sights. The design’s dramatic cascade is intended to be an ode to the purity and romance of falling snow. Also noteworthy: the snowflake-inspired Frosted Star cuff with its 5.12 ct. cushion-cut Madagascan blue sapphire surrounded by square-cut black opals.
As for Dancing Nights, the Night Illusion necklace and its companion jewels capture the flashing colors of the aurora borealis in the finest colored gemstones. Featuring a 10.76 ct. Colombian emerald, the asymmetrical necklace has an undulating quality, with its spirals of marquise-cut emeralds, marquise-cut Paraiba tourmalines, and spiky emerald crystals. Extraction of these crystals, which originate in blocks of quartz, is extremely difficult, making their inclusion across this chapter all the more special.
Top: Piaget’s Green Aurora cuff is another love letter to the northern lights phenomenon articulated with a central indigo tourmaline weighing more than 14 cts. from Namibia and vibrant marquetry by artist Rose Saneuil, whom Piaget has partnered with in the past.
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