Ornate Brocade

Get into the spirit of spring with bejewelled flowers, birds and butterflies in bold splashes of vermilion

ubies, sapphires, garnets and opals bring life to modern, nature-inspired pieces, such as New York designer Temple St Clair’s Mythical Creatures from the Golden Menagerie collection. The unique nine-piece series includes her Phoenix Chicks earrings set with Lightning Ridge black opals, tanzanites, tourmalines, moonstones, tsavorite garnets and sapphires.

Victoire de Castellane, Dior Joaillerie’s artistic director, goes for pink sapphires and tsavorite garnets this year to adorn her Rose Dior Bagatelle collection, while Cindy Chao combines rubies and diamonds in her structural Butterfly masterpiece brooch. Pushing its enamellers to new heights of workmanship, Van Cleef & Arpels’ Charms Extraordinaire Amour watch features intricately enamelled wallflowers, forget-me-nots and cyclamens on its mother-ofpearl dial, complemented by the 38mm pink gold case with a bezel set with a diffusion of diamonds, pink sapphires and spessartite garnets.

Big cabochons are all the rage, too, as up-andcoming designer Anabela Chan goes for raspberry drop earrings with garnets, and Bulgari presents its MVSA necklace in pink gold with five rubellites and four amethysts weighing a total of 242.94 carats.