Dior’s Guiding Star – The Rose des Vents Collection

As folkloric traditions continues to set a precedent for many jewellery maisons, corralling esoteric symbolism and humble handicrafts, it is bewildering at best to think that one of fashion’s most unimpeachable legacies would not have transpired if not for a peculiar, lucky star Monsieur Dior had chanced upon, thereby accepting it as a portent of his destiny to start his own couture house back in 1946. For this, Dior’s latest Rose des Vents jewellery collection was hardly borne of a floral motif, but instead an old nautical, navigational instrument – a wind rose – used to display the orientation of the cardinal directions. But like many of creative director Victoire de Castellane’s conceptions, the deceptively simple octagonal star was a silent carrier of unmediated meaning, a reinvented relic laden with Christian Dior’s earliest, and most delicate memories.

Unbeknownst to many, behind the illustrious fashion house, from which spawned the true virtues of elegance and fineness of dress was a man of sentiment and superstition. Composed of his fondest signs and symbols, Rose des Vents harkens back to Dior’s childhood in Granville, Normandy where he lived in an Anglo-Norman villa perched atop a cliff, overlooking the sea. Coincidentally enough, this cherished home, which soon became a holiday retreat when Dior began spending more time in Paris, was named after the rhombus-shaped points of a compass, Les Rhumbs and had the recurring motif running through its decor. More essentially, Dior’s garden in Les Rhumbs was where he developed his passion for roses and is often credited for influencing Dior more so than anywhere else he had ever lived. Having met that familial metal star once again outside the British Embassy in Paris, Christian Dior established his fashion house and the star accompanied him to the four ends of the earth as he presented his couture creations to the world’s fashionable elite.

Yet, idiosyncratic charm and anecdotal memorabilia aside, the Rose des Vents jewellery collection certainly doesn’t require any form of vivid or analytical storytelling to be desired. Perhaps, it is safe to surmise that you can count on one of history’s most venerated couture house to transform a folksy object into something as delicate and fragile as frost and by contrast, like a talisman, designed to be worn and then forgotten about – on a daily basis. Comprised of four bracelets, four necklaces and a sautoir-style necklace, each is as beautiful and whimsical on the surface as it was mapped out to be, accentuated with the Dior elegance that has spanned the ages.

Rife with notions of wanderlust, each piece is composed of a reversible medallion-like pendant expertly crafted in yellow or pink gold with a diamond set in the center on one side. Then on the other side, Victoire de Castellane has selected some of Dior’s favourite gemstones from far-flung horizons to represent each of the cardinal directions: a symbol of femininity and well-being, iridescent mother-of-pearl for north, turquoise, a stone of protection and strength, for south, frosty pink opal, a symbol of peace and tranquillity with healing properties, for east and lapis-lazuli, an emblem of serenity, wisdom and truth for west. A subtle nod to rigging and the ocean, a twisted outline of tiny gold grains encircles the medallion, spinning freely on the wearer’s neck or wrist, displaying either its hard stone or wind rose face, as she moves.

Tellingly, the calling card of this naïve-yet-knowing jewel lies in its sublime simplicity. In fact, it ticks all the boxes for that modern, effortless finesse: luxurious details, barely-there presence, endlessly wearable with that all-important, singular pull-factor and finally, it accompanies the wearer and allows for open-ended interpretation. The sautoir-style necklace, for instance, can be acclimatised to a variety of milieus be it elegantly looped twice around the neck for the boardroom or kept carefree and fashionably long for summer festivals.

In honor of the new line, Victoire de Castellane has also created a special series of short cartoon videos where the collection’s deep symbolism is illuminated by a bubbly narrative. It features imaginary dialogues that Castellane might have had with Monsieur Dior whilst crafting the collection together. In the span of a few seconds, the assorted, lighthearted vignettes present the worlds encapsulated by each of the cardinal points, along with stones that represent them. It ends off at the Dior Couture Ball, where Castellane and Monsieur Dior would present the Rose des Vents collection together.

As Victoire de Castellane herself succinctly puts it across, Rose des Vents speaks of “a symbol of travel, in it you find echoes of Christian Dior’s star and the idea of the good-luck charm, but also the rose, his favorite flower. The whole history of the house is there, implicitly” – That alone is perhaps, something no other bombshell jewel, no matter how gem-spattered, can compete with.

View more about Dior’s jewellery collection here.