How the first Dior jeweler changed the way of jewelry: Victoire de Castellane

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

An aristocrat from the oldest French family, she blew up the dance floors of Parisian clubs, putting on the ears of Mickey Mouse, dreamed of drinking coffee with Christian Dior, walked the catwalk at Chanel shows and introduced the trend for multicolored jewelry. Victoire de Castellane is the first designer of the Dior jewelry line.

Victoire was born in 1962 in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Her family - de Castellane - has been known since the tenth century, if not earlier, and among the ancestors of Victoire are princes and bishops, marshals and generals, eccentric dandies and governors of Provence. One of Victoire's relatives served as the prototype for the protagonist of Marcel Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time. The writer compared it to opal - and now it is Victoire's favorite stone, because it is changeable, unusual and contains all existing colors and shades.

Another inspiration for Victoire was her daddy grandmother, Sylvia Hennessy. She was a real style icon and changing a few luxurious outfits in a day was a routine for her. And my grandmother certainly chose jewelry for the outfits - carefully and for a long time. And she had equally brilliant friends - for example, the millionaire Barbara Hutton, who appeared in public in diamonds and emeralds in broad daylight. Sylvia Hennessy was also friends with Christian Dior. Victoire is currently drawing her own comic strip about her imaginary friendship with the couturier.

One way or another, Victoire developed an interest in jewelry at the age of five - even then she was remaking jewelry, donated by her parents, to her liking. The first "serious" own adornment was a ring, which de Castellane made at twelve and still wears it. At about the same age, Victoire came under the wing of her uncle Gilles Dufour, a friend and colleague of Karl Lagerfeld. He strenuously took up the upbringing of Victoire - albeit in a somewhat peculiar way. He bought the girl "grown-up" dresses and shoes and took her to the most famous Parisian clubs - the rest of the family did not mind at all.

Victoire was inspired by music, dancing, a vibrant crowd, the ability to dress and act crazy - but she was a serious girl (although she hated school - a rebel hatred). She did not use alcohol or drugs, did not make dubious acquaintances - she only came up with outfits and dance moves under the watchful guidance of Uncle Gilles. The “clubbing” past has become a powerful creative source for Victoire. In 1984, Victoire came to practice at Chanel and became one of Karl Lagerfeld's muses. Indifferent to women in the erotic-romantic sense, the great Karl always loved to communicate with young talented girls, to be their mentor, a kind of father on the way to the world of fashion. True, only two of them, Viard and de Castellane, were destined to achieve real success.

Victoire designed accessories for Chanel - and sometimes appeared on the catwalk herself. In 1998, Bernard Arnault founded the Dior jewelry line and invited Victoire as a designer, giving her complete freedom of action. She was one of the first designers in the luxury class to start using semi-precious stones along with precious stones - since the 2000s, it was with the light hand of de Castellane that this became a common practice in Western jewelry art.

The jewelry line in Dior did not have a long history, fashion houses in general rarely had their own jewelry lines, and therefore de Castellane could afford to treat this high purpose as a game. Before its appearance in the jewelry industry, it was considered "decent" to wear precious stones after 30 years and only in the evening - but the decency of Victoire was the last thing that worried!

On the Place Vendôme, among jewelers, it was received with caution - never before have the creators of jewelry been so public, they have not turned their lives into a performance. In addition, Victoire at that time was the only female jeweler of this level, and in the male world at first it was not easy for her - now she breathes a sigh of relief, noting that at last there are many young women who are engaged in jewelry design. Victoire draws his sketches by hand - and then a long and painstaking work begins, which can take several years. De Castellane is sometimes annoyed by the slow pace of her profession - in another life she would like to become a rock star. She cannot say about any of her creations how exactly she invented it - the images are born in the artist's head by themselves, immediately complete.

She is in love with all colors and all materials in the world, she is fascinated by manga, Bollywood films, botany … Dior jewelry line is available only to special clients, but their only real addressee is Christian Dior. The couturier loved multicolored jewelry and believed that it was the ability to work with color that betrayed the skill of the jeweler, and when creating another ring or necklace, Victoire was thinking only of the founder of the fashion house. One of her collections is dedicated to Dior's favorite roses and his passion for Versailles.

Almost paraphrasing Coco Chanel, she says that fashion is transitory, and even nudity can express style. Her jewelry does not fit into trends - these are works of modern art, sculptures that adorn the body, and she calls them toys for adults, designed to give happiness.

It seems that Victoire violates not only generally accepted rules in jewelry, but also the laws of nature - there are clearly more than twenty-four hours in its day! She records music, acts in films, poses for magazines, draws comics … She has four children from two marriages - with the collector Paul-Emmanuel Reiffersand and the artist Tom Lenthal.

Today the House of Dior is ruled by another woman - Maria Grazia Chiuri. Just like Galliano and Simmons before her, she gives complete freedom to her colleague - but actively promotes de Castellane's publicity, for example, she created several dresses specifically for the presentation of her jewelry collection. Curie, like Castellane, treats fashion as a game - which means that this creative tandem is destined to have many more coups.