At Tiffany’s Blue Book collection, blooms, butterflies and baubles take the spotlight | Canada Voices

The roaring click of camera shutters pointed at bejewelled celebrities on a red carpet generates buzz. But at the hushed media preview of Tiffany & Co.’s annual Blue Book collection in New York in April, it’s a different, more discreet story. Designed around a Hidden Garden theme by senior vice president and chief artistic officer Nathalie Verdeille, pieces reinterpret the legendary artistry of Jean Schlumberger. The French jewellery designer worked with Tiffany from 1956 through the 1970s and has been a focal point of Blue Book in recent years. This time around, his commissions for ardent patron and confidante, American heiress and horticulturalist Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, are in the spotlight.

Aside from the starry gala that coincides with the collection’s debut, Blue Book lives outside the media circus and takes the long view by emphasizing notable client relationships – past, present and potential. And no client is spoken of in more hushed, reverential tones than Mellon. In the airy 8th-floor gallery space of the Landmark, the house’s headquarters on Fifth Avenue, an elaborate pastel blue garden set is dotted with display cases and planted with fragrant living flowers and foliage. Amidst new groupings themed Monarch, Jasmine, Butterfly, Bee, Marguerite, Parrot, Bloom, Palm, Twin Bud, Paradise Bird and Bird on a Rock, Dr. Sylvain Cordier, Paul Mellon Curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, has sowed it with a dozen important pieces from the Paul and Rachel Mellon Collection.

The historic showstopper is the Jasmine necklace. The spectacular piece, a tangle of diamond-studded branches encircling gemstones, was made in the building and hasn’t been back since it was sold 60 years ago. It features an exceptional collection of unenhanced coloured sapphires that Cordier says took Tiffany more than 20 years to gather. Created between in 1958 and 1962, the necklace took another four years to find a client, Paul Mellon, who gave it to Bunny for Christmas in 1966. “She picked the colours she liked the best, the blue being a very important colour for both Jean Schlumberger and Mrs. Mellon,” says Victoria Reynolds, Tiffany’s chief gemologist.

When blooms are the theme, there is often a supporting cast of butterflies, bees and birds. In the showroom, they radiate around a gazebo in the centre of the space, where four extraordinary new brooches nestle among a spray of tulips. Each diamond-studded bird is one of a kind – one perches on an extraordinary Mexican fire opal, the shimmer and dimension of its plumage creating a sense of motion atop a gemstone that seems aglow. A motif at the heart of the Schlumberger repertoire, Bird on a Rock is now iterated throughout Tiffany collections including new diamond-plumed renditions of paillonné enamel bracelets.

At the core of the collection’s inspiration is how Schlumberger articulated Mellon’s love of the gardens at her Virginia estate. “The journey he went on with her – one could not have existed without the other, it’s fascinating and real,” says Reynolds, who is now in her 38th year with the company.

It was a rapport that existed with other clients too. A Plumes necklace on display was devised in 1960 for British model Fiona Campbell-Walter following her marriage to Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza. Once thought lost, it was recently acquired by the Tiffany Archives. Campbell-Walter brought Schlumberger the rubies but otherwise gave him carte blanche. “We do a lot of custom design. It’s a big part of our business,” Reynolds says. “That one-on-one relationship that Jean Schlumberger had with Bunny Mellon is something that we have with a handful of clients around the world. So I’ll just know a piece of jewellery when I see it, when I know their collection.” That Paradise Bird perched on a Mexican fire opal? “This was actually the first [Blue Book] piece that sold, to a client that collects them,” Reynolds says. A second is already spoken for.

“If a client wants an incredible gemstone, they’ll go on that journey with me, they’ll sit with Nathalie. As much as I love my stones, I want to see them go to somebody who loves them as much as me.” One client might have Reynolds on the lookout for a Kashmir sapphire that’s over 15 carats. “And it might take me years! My number one client is Nathalie, really. But the best part of my job is being able to work with clients who have the ability to fall in love with these pieces of jewelry and bring them home.”

Although Blue Book is designed in suites of pieces, Reynolds says clients don’t tend to buy that way. “Our clients really like mixing and matching,” she says. “Typically, we have clients who like to style it in a way that’s unique to them.” Where they’re wearing it is evolving too. “Twenty years ago, it would be rare to see somebody wearing something of this calibre during the day – not anymore. I think COVID freed a lot of women up, to be honest with you. They were like, ‘I’ve got this stuff sitting at home. Why am I not wearing it?’”

While Reynolds and I discuss which new Blue Book pieces would give Schlumberger the most delight, Tiffany & Co. president and CEO Anthony Ledru pops his head in and they both emphatically agree on Parrot. “Because of the paillonné enamel,” Reynolds says. “The suite showcases a captivating blue translucence and iridescence, juxtaposed with diamonds. “It’s the closest to what he’s done.”

As we wrap up, Reynolds underscores how Schlumberger famously said that a piece of jewellery is never fully complete until it’s worn. “It’s really about the person who wears it,” she says. “You can see a necklace worn by two completely different women, and it really does take on the personality of the woman.”

The Globe and Mail Style Magazine travelled as a guest of Tiffany & Co., which did not review or approve this article. Stories are based on merit; The Globe does not guarantee coverage.