Muguet Mania for Dior
Independent creativity project hosted by the Maison Dior for our last year at the Haute École de Joaillerie. The inspiration point, being the Lilly of the Valley was completely unkown to me coming from the Amazonian region in Brazil. A first glance led me to diving deeper into its nuances, its delicacy and the bell shaped-flower, which reminded me a lot of musical bells and gave me the main subject of inspiration for the piece.
"How to express musicality through flowers" was my goal when creating this piece. To represent this, I went after a music sheet that would inspire this and found myself with Claude Debussy's Arabesque No. 1. It's a 19th century romantic piece which creates an atmosphere with its curves and "vegetal" forms.
18K Gold Choker set with rock crystals, green and pink tourmalines and green enamel.
For the figurative part, I was inspired by a Brazilian photographer called Catharina Suleiman that creates flower arrangements to represent the "flower-woman" (which also alludes to the woman of the New Look, Christian Dior's first collection). More than just flowering the music, the lillies of the valley would be dancing around it.
The name of the piece, "Muguet Mania" makes allusion to the french name of the Lilly of the Valley, but also refers to the Tulipomania fever in the Netherlands, a period where the flower was highly valuable and adorned all designs, clothing, furniture and even jewelry.
For the materials, the choice to use two colours of gold, yellow and white was made to create two different universes. Addionally to the motifs, enamel was also envisioned for the leaved, the strands and the prongs. As for the stones, rock crystal and coloured tourmalines were chosed to bring out the music notes. ​
Study made at the third year of Jewelry Design at the Haute École de Joaillerie in Paris.
Drawing of the back part of the necklace, showing the flower clasp.