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In her 13 years as creative director of the French jewellery house Boucheron, Claire Choisne’s mood boards have featured some unusual suspects. This January she introduced the latest high jewellery collection with a picture of Prince Philip waving at crowds during the coronation in 1953. He’s decked out in his Admiral of the Fleet finery, decorated with military medals and orders of chivalry, white ribbons fluttering at his shoulders.
‘OK, Prince Philip is not my absolute muse – but I love this picture,’ says Choisne via video call from the Tucson Gem Show, where she is shopping for the stones that will feature in the house’s 2026 collections. She was drawn to the unexpectedly feminine details of the late Duke of Edinburgh’s ceremonial uniform. ‘You feel the power and the strength, but at the same time there are all these couture details: bows, ribbons, embroidery. It’s a paradox.’
She decided it was the perfect way to interpret the well-trodden high jewellery theme of ‘couture’. ‘I didn’t want to do something too girly or cheesy. I wanted to give strength to the pieces. When I saw this picture, I said to myself, “OK, now I know how to manage the creation of this collection.”’
The resulting 24-piece collection, The Power of Couture, is the latest chapter in Boucheron’s annual Histoire de Style series, which sees Choisne reinterpret designs or themes from the house’s 166-year history. Its founder, Frédéric Boucheron, was the son of a draper, and so the archive teems with diamond-set bows, ribbons and lace, with gold worked into supple-as-silk scarves. A lace-like shoulder adornment made circa 1880 was a Belle Epoque predecessor of today’s white gold and diamond epaulettes, whose overlapping loops were inspired by a tiara made in 1902 for the Princess of Wales, later Queen Mary, Prince Philip’s grandmother-in-law.
Clipped across the shoulders, they’re a precious take on the traditional tasselled gold epaulettes of naval uniforms. They also transform into cuffs; such versatility is a hallmark of the collection. A set of 15 medal brooches can be strung into a bib necklace of epic proportions. A rock-crystal and diamond bow can fasten to the shoulder or chest, or be fashioned into a multi-wear necklace, while its central diamond can be plucked off to become a ring. A braided aiguillette can be worn military-style across the chest, draped around the waist, or disassembled into brooches and a bracelet.
‘In ceremonial attire there are so many rules that you have to respect. For the collection, I wanted the opposite,’ says Choisne. ‘I wanted people to be able to play freely and design their own style.’ She sees the collection as a ‘kit’ with an almost infinite number of styling combinations. Her dream, she says, would be for one client to buy the lot. Whether that client is male or female is of little importance.
‘A long time ago the people who wore high jewellery were men. The maharajas, the tsars, the kings. The biggest and most beautiful pieces were designed for men.’ One of Boucheron’s most famous clients was the Maharaja of Patiala, who in 1928 had his guards cart some 7,571 diamonds and 1,432 emeralds from The Ritz to the Boucheron boutique, to be set into 149 extraordinarily opulent jewels – a commission that inspired New Maharajas, the house’s 2022 Histoire de Style high jewellery collection.
Today, continues Choisne, ‘I don’t want to do pieces for men or for women. I want to make beautiful and meaningful pieces. And I want to show that it’s beyond gender.’ She says that men do buy and wear Boucheron high jewellery, but she doesn’t know the precise proportion of male customers. ‘I almost don’t want to know exactly, because I’m sure of my idea. And maybe we have to show them that it’s a good one.’
Three years ago, Boucheron’s art deco-inspired Histoire de Style collection was photographed on male and female models – a first among Place Vendôme’s traditional maisons. ‘I knew that some of the pieces were even stronger on men. But the idea of it was almost weird at that time. People asked me, “Are you sure, high jewellery on men?” And my answer was, “Yes, definitely,”’ says Choisne.
The Power of Couture collection, conversely, was exclusively photographed on and modelled by women; another deliberately defiant move. ‘When you think of ceremonial attire, you naturally think of men. So I wanted to show the opposite. It doesn’t make sense for me to choose between men and women. Nowadays we can do what we want.’
A pair of embroidery-inspired diamond ferns have an ethereal, Greek goddess-like beauty when worn as a headpiece. But one can also imagine them pinned to a tuxedo, echoing the actor Regé-Jean Page, who wore a feather-shaped diamond Boucheron brooch at last year’s Oscars.
Although it may take a Liberace-channelling peacock to carry off a lacy diamond collar, even the most bling-averse gentleman could be tempted to affix a few rock crystal and diamond buttons to his dress shirt. Choisne says Boucheron’s clients span the whole spectrum. ‘It’s the same for men as it is for women: some are more classical, and some are super edgy.’ Culture plays a role. ‘Maybe European men are a bit more traditional, whereas in Asia men can be more open-minded when it comes to style.’
It was important that the Power of Couture collection wasn’t too literal, says Choisne; it couldn’t feel like fancy dress. A restrained, all-white palette of rock crystal and diamonds helps; she champions texture and detail over bold hues or glitzy brilliance. The pieces are labelled with their carat weight along with the hours involved in their creation – many run into the thousands. ‘If you put a lot of little diamonds everywhere, it’s easy. It will shine, so you have no doubt that it’s precious,’ says Choisne. ‘But I prefer to find preciousness with purity of design and elegance, which come from the craftsmanship. It’s not about having lots of diamonds. The number of hours is what makes it high jewellery.’
The transformable Noeud bow, for example, is crafted from hundreds of individually cut lines of frosted rock crystal, threaded together through their diamond edging to evoke the texture and fluidity of grosgrain ribbon. ‘It would be much faster and easier to engrave a single piece, but I wanted it to be really flexible. So they cut every little line by hand. Each one is a different length. It’s crazy work to achieve that.’ That’s 2,600 hours of crazy work, to be precise.
Elsewhere, sandblasted rock crystal is knitted together into the flexible, five-strand Tricot choker. ’The idea was to give an illusion of knit work,’ says Choisne. ‘The unpolished rock crystal gives the feeling of softness, like wool.’ The Médailles feature grosgrain-effect rock-crystal ribbons, from which hang 15 medallions of sculpted rock crystal overlaid on to beds of brilliant-cut diamonds. ‘We cut the rock crystal with the glyptic technique – it’s much more complicated than engraving. Then we set diamonds underneath so they are a bit blurred. For me, it’s more magical.’
It’s clear that Boucheron’s craft workers relish Choisne’s technical challenges. They are currently making the pieces that will launch in July 2025 (Boucheron presents two high jewellery collections a year), while Choisne is finalising designs for 2026, and developing her ideas for 2027. It’s not always easy to sleep with so many different concepts buzzing around her brain, she admits. Her approach to design mirrors the demands she asks of her atelier. ‘I don’t love it when it’s too easy.’