If last year’s Dior high jewellery collection revelled in fauna – all delicate creatures and fantastical animals – this year turns its attention to flora. Diorissima, unveiled by Victoire de Castellane for 2026, is a lavish meditation on the natural world, filtered through the jeweller’s unmistakably maximalist lens. The outcome is less botanical study, more fever dream garden, forming a collection dense with colour, texture and movement.
Since taking the helm of Dior Joaillerie in 1999, de Castellane has treated jewellery as a space for storytelling rather than ornament alone. Diorissima continues that approach, unfolding across three distinct worlds inspired by Christian Dior’s fascination with life in all its forms. There are lush, overgrown landscapes tangled with clover, wisteria and fruit-laden branches, underwater scenes alive with coral and fish suspended among bubbles and celestial compositions where eclipses, suns and clouds drift across the body as gemstones.
What keeps the collection compelling is its balance of abstraction and precision. De Castellane references the collage techniques of artists admired by Monsieur Dior – Matisse and Picasso among them – through unexpected juxtapositions of shape and colour. Stones are layered, sliced and offset against lacquered surfaces so that necklaces and rings feel almost assembled rather than traditionally set.
Across 141 pieces – including brooches, ear cuffs, bracelets and elaborate necklaces – colour does much of the talking. Deep blues mimic aquatic depths while acid greens and milky opals give the floral pieces an otherworldly luminosity. Particularly striking is the use of the doublet technique, where one stone is layered over another to intensify colour and depth. Opal placed over chrysoprase, for example, creates a watery, shifting green that feels almost synthetic in its brightness.
Lacquer, another Dior Joaillerie signature, is used throughout to heighten contrast and catch the light, alternating between transparency and opacity with remarkable subtlety. The effect feels immersive as opposed to decorative, drawing all who lay eyes on it into a world of wonder and whimsy. Diorissima doesn’t simply reference nature, it constructs an entire fantasy ecosystem around the wearer, rich with detail and just slightly surreal.
Photography courtesy of Dior.
