If we wanted to trace the moment when the legend of Jean Schlumberger began, we could start with the Duchess of Kent and her Flying Fish earrings. The jewels were discovered by Elsa Schiaparelli at a dinner and the Italian designer made it her mission to track down the man who dared to dream of such jewels.
It wasn’t long before Schlumberger was collaborating with Schiaparelli on buttons and costume jewelry. She was a self-professed surrealist, but Schlumberger had his own approach to the exquisitely bizarre. “I try to make everything look as if it were growing, unevenly, randomly, organically, in motion,” he once said. That fantastical aesthetic he brought to Tiffany when he joined the house in 1956 applied to stone-encrusted creatures of land and sea, motifs from myth, history and the skies above. The 2024 Tiffany Blue Book Collection, titled Tiffany Céleste and designed by artistic director of jewelry and fine jewelry Nathalie Verdeille, looks upward. It takes stars and wings and constellations and rays of light and translates them into unique jewels.
Flights of fancy and otherwise are a consistent theme in Schlumberger’s work. He is, after all, the man who designed Bird on a Rock. But his Wing earrings and rare Pegasus brooch are equally coveted – just try comparing prices at auction.
The Blue Book’s Wings necklace pictured here references both of these archival pieces and then runs them through Verdeille’s great imagination – and Tiffany’s access to stones like the 20-carat oval diamond at the center. Schlumberger’s legacy is intact, from the otherworldly inspiration to the yellow gold radiant detail at the bottom of the piece. It was also clearly visible when Jennifer Lopez wore the necklace to the Met Gala earlier this year. The dress she wore to her Schlumberger tribute? It was by Schiaparelli.
Above: The unique Wings necklace from Tiffany & Co.’s Blue Book Collection 2024. Tiffany & Co. Necklace made of platinum, 18 carat gold and diamonds. Prop Styling by Rebecca Bartoshesky at Hello Artists.
This story appears in the September 2024 issue of City & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
Editor-in-chief Stellene Volandes is a jewellery expert and author of Jeweler: Master and outsider of modern design (Rizzoli).
