The Brilliant Galaxy of Tiffany Céleste

The Apollo necklace and ring from Blue Book 2024: Tiffany Céleste are breathtaking creations that reimagine Jean Schlumberger’s iconic Apollo brooch. The designs uplift 11 fiery Fancy Intense Yellow diamonds of over 26 total carats, together with 3,173 white diamonds of over 97 total carats.

Victoria Reynolds has a knack for jewellery—the way she stacks and layers a mix of heirlooms and high jewellery in a nonchalant yet elegant fashion, one overlooks the total price tag (six figures plus)—a passion she has nurtured for 37 years in the industry, currently as chief gemologist and vice-president of global merchandising of high jewellery for Tiffany & Co. “My first memory is playing with my grandmother’s jewellery,” she recounts. A charm bracelet that once belonged to Nan is now Reynolds’s staple piece to which she is continually adding Tiffany & Co. charms. Her first encounter with the New York jeweller was a visit to the Fifth Avenue boutique when she was a child, selecting a brooch for her mother with her father: “I was mesmerized by the diamonds and coloured gemstones.” This was all precursor for the position she now holds, shouldering the great responsibility of acquiring the most coveted gems, in a responsible and traceable manner, for the storied house of Tiffany & Co.

Released annually since 1845, the Tiffany & Co. Blue Book is the apogee of the house’s creative achievement, where the most beautiful geological specimens unearthed go to shine. Céleste is the latest Blue Book collection, where the sun, the moon, the stars, and distant galaxies first pioneered by Jean Schlumberger, the long-time Tiffany & Co. designer known for his whimsical reinterpretations of nature, have been adapted and reinterpreted. Winged silhouettes with sapphires and diamonds emblematic of flight and soaring above the atmosphere hint at discoveries of distant constellations.

Tiffany and Co. Wings earrings in platinum and 18-karat yellow gold with unenhanced esteemed Sri Lankan sapphires of over four carats and diamonds.

With this collection, the “acquisition of the stones came first, and we were able to give design the time they needed,” Reynolds points out. The calibre is unparalleled, and one can only think the company’s recent new owner, Bernard Arnault of LVMH, has provided the bandwidth not previously available to realize a collection of this magnitude. “One of the things I always quote Schlumberger on,” Reynolds says, “is the importance of capturing the irregularity of the universe. He called it ‘nature’s verb’—having a little off balance makes it more interesting.” During Schlumberger’s era, jewellery was either first modelled in carved wax or metal, but now 3D-printing technology has allowed for more trial and error, with many of the pieces in the collection modelled multiple times to tweak how the stones would be set and how a piece might sit on the wrist or neck.

The collection’s pièce de résistance is the Wings necklace (pictured below) in platinum and 18-karat yellow gold with an internally flawless centre diamond of over 20 carats. “The diamond is a Type IIA, which means there is no negligible form of nitrogen,” Reynolds explains. Nitrogen is what gives white diamonds colour and devalues them. “There’s only 2 per cent of diamonds in the world that don’t have any nitrogen. What that means is the person wearing this necklace has optically the purest diamond—it’s colourless.”

Tiffany and Co. Wings necklace in platinum and 18-karat yellow gold with a flawless centre diamond of over 20 carats.

It took Reynolds one year to source the aforementioned stone, and “Nathalie [Verdeille, chief artistic officer at the company] and her team 1,700 hours to create it. A lot of time, designers are afraid to really design something, because the stone should be really the first thing you look at. But what Nathalie does is amazing balancing the importance of the stone in a beautiful and creative way.”

All told, the Céleste Blue Book collection was two and a half years in the making, and much like Schlumberger before her, Reynolds isn’t so much focused on the value of stones but rather the beauty. “I make decisions based on the beauty of the stone, and this is what has always differentiated us,” she says, commenting on Tiffany & Co.’s staying power. “There’s beauty in every gemstone. You really have to look for that, then know when it’s the best and focus on that.” Dreamlike, majestic, and imaginative, Céleste is a collection that will have you reaching for the stars.

Tiffany and Co. Apollo ring in platinum and 18-karat yellow gold with a fancy intense yellow diamond of over six carats and white diamond accents.

Tiffany & Co. Iconic Star earrings in platinum and 18-karat yellow gold with blue zircons of over 9 total carats, aquamarines of over 18 total carats, with mother-of-pearl and diamonds.

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