At Fashion Week in September 2023, Maison Messika presented its latest Haute Joaillerie collection. We spoke to Valérie Messika, the brand’s designer, about the world of this line.
Tell us about the theme and universe of this new collection?
For this collection, I was inspired by the world of the 70s and 80s, the atmosphere of the night and night clubs, with the Studio 54 period, when all kinds of people, including celebrities like Diana Ross and Andy Warhol, got together to dance and have a joyous time, with a kind of freedom.
Midnight Sun is the Midnight Sun. The way for me to represent it was to challenge myself and use lots of yellow diamonds. But I also really enjoyed playing with the freedom I have as a designer, experimenting with different styles, different aesthetics and different materials, like pearls. In fact, this was the first time I’d worked on a set with pearls. I know pearls very well because I studied them at the start of my career, and they have a slightly old-fashioned character that reminds me of my grandmother.
I wanted to push myself to the limit and create something cool with pearls. So I created pieces with beautiful gradations of grey pearls. But you’ll also see body chains with pearls, hairbands. I’m always trying to create younger pieces with lots of style.
During the show, a piece with a yellow diamond weighing over 30 carats was presented: can you give us the details of this stone, where it comes from and how it was sublimated and integrated into the jewellery?
This is a magnificent radiant-cut South African yellow diamond weighing almost 35 carats. This diamond is truly exceptional, not only in terms of its purity but also in terms of its radiant colour and impressive size. I wanted to pay tribute to its brilliance and create a highly original setting with a necklace in the shape of a brushed gold collar, on which a line of diamonds wraps around and supports the stone. A very sunny set !
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Featured photo : Valérie Messika © Nicolas Gerardin
