Tiffany & Co.'s new Tiffany Céleste collection is inspired by the universe

The Los Angeles universe doesn’t begin or end in Beverly Hills. Depending on who you talk to, it doesn’t even cross paths. But on a recent warm afternoon, a celestial realm existed inside a cool room at the Beverly Estate, where Tiffany & Co.’s new Tiffany Céleste collection was on display (and scenes from “The Bodyguard” and “The Godfather” were once filmed). The sun, moon and stars are reliable motifs that fashion has turned to again and again for decades — universal inspiration in its truest sense. Tiffany & Co.’s new high jewelry offering is one of the latest collections to follow in this vein. Inspired by the designs of the late, iconic Tiffany jewelry designer Jean Schlumberger and his preoccupation with the cosmos, the collection is designer Nathalie Verdeille’s second with the house.

Tiffany Céleste is marked by six chapters: Wings, Arrow, Constellation, Iconic Star, Ray of Light, and Apollo—all visual or spiritual themes that, for Tiffany & Co., evoke the infinity of the world around us. They are the kinds of pieces that change the energy of a room. I stand in front of the Iconic Star collection—clusters of blue zircons, diamonds, aquamarines, and mother-of-pearl designed to look like a handful of stars in a constellation—and stumble over my words. I stare so long it doesn’t seem real, so deeply I feel like I might fall into the jewels. I linger over them, careful not to breathe so that no gemstones tarnish. Though touching them isn’t technically illegal, I feel like it might as well be. Who am I to reach for a star?

Mya wears a complete look by Ellaè Lisquè, shoes by Anabelle and the Tiffany Céleste collection. Eldric wears a LABO.ART top and Weisheng Paris trousers.

A Tiffany Céleste Ray of Light chapter ring in platinum and 18k yellow gold with a red spinel weighing over 5 carats and diamonds.

Mya wears a Tiffany Céleste Ray of Light Chapter necklace in platinum and 18-karat yellow gold with red spinels weighing over 48 carats total, a pink spinel weighing over four carats, and diamonds.

Design inspired by worlds beyond our full understanding is a tried-and-true tradition. Remember galaxy-print leggings? A garment so ubiquitous in the early 2010s that it’s now part of our collective villain origin story. Looking back at the Tumblr archives, it seems like it’s predestined — written in the stars, so to speak. They weren’t always so tragically haunted, a reminder of how desperately we wanted to look different, weird, or even worse. peculiar. Because, back in the day, that voracious desire for singularity (reflected in our skintight Lycra featuring a cartoonish depiction of what looks like the Milky Way, paired with studded Jeffrey Campbell Litas for good measure) was a powerful enough vehicle to launch someone into transcendence. Think of Christopher Kane’s 2011 resort collection, the couture cousin of galaxy-print tights. Kane described his inspiration behind the collection, which used the motif of a nebula as seen from the Hubble telescope, as “the idea of ​​explosive outward expansion,” according to Vogue. reported Back then, Chanel, Alexander McQueen, Gucci and Rodarte presented collections that took literal and symbolic representations from the universe.

The Tiffany Céleste Wings set, which symbolizes “flight and fantasy” according to the brand, uses layers of diamonds and metal that jut out in contrasting directions, resulting in pieces that look like tiny angelic creatures. One of the set’s signature pieces, the platinum and 18-karat yellow gold necklace with a 20-carat diamond at the center and diamond accents throughout, was worn by J.Lo on the Met Gala carpet earlier this year, paired with a sheer Schiaparelli gown. An angel from the block (the question remains: which block?). At the Beverly Estate, the Ray of Light set, worn with a yellow skirt suit by a model lounging by that famous turquoise pool, serves as a portal for the light to pour in. The red spinel in one of the necklaces, which also doubles as a tiara, acts as its own version of the black-and-white spiral patterns worn by hypnotists, fixing the eyes.

Eldric wears a top by Tako Mekvabidze and trousers by LABO.ART. Mya wears a top by Gaurav Gupta, trousers by Gallery Dept. and shoes by By Anabelle, along with a bracelet from Tiffany’s Ray of Light Céleste collection in platinum and 18-karat yellow gold with pink spinels totaling over 10 carats and diamonds.

Why is this so? Why did Alessandro Michele put spaceships on a dress in his Fall 2017 ready-to-wear collection for Gucci? Or why did Schlumberger himself reference the glow of the sun’s rays in his archival pieces or the almighty star in his old design sketches? There are ideas that seem too big not to try to condense into something like jewelry, art, or fashion. The galaxy, the stars, and their dust are part of us—or we are part of them, according to earnest, outdated internet memes. There is something inherently mysterious about celestial bodies, in such a way that it’s scary to think about it for too long. (I guess it’s none of my business.) But the truth is, there’s nothing we love more than being transported to a planet. We look to the universe for guidance, understanding, a connection. See the way we reflexively ask about someone's Big Three when the conversation needs resurrecting on a crazy date, or the way we hang on every word of Los Angeles lesbian astrologer Chani Nicholas.

We would rather turn something intangible like the stars and all the mythology we have assigned to them since the literal beginning of time into something so It’s so tangible that we can literally hold it in our hands. A piece from the Tiffany Céleste collection, part of the Constellation suite, it’s a platinum and 18-karat yellow gold ring. More than 25 carats of diamonds surround the band, and an unenhanced pink sapphire sits at its center. The sapphire, the color of ripe dragon fruit, is cut in such a way that it seems to contain multitudes. How to digest infinity? Make it a unique ring that you only wear on special occasions.

Production: Mere Studios
Models: Eldric Barnes and Mya West
Make up: Leslie Castillo
Hair: Adrian Arredondo
Production assistant: Marco Millner
Photography assistant: Kabir Affonso
Styling Assistant: Neko Baker