Chopard hosts a glamorous art event to celebrate the first anniversary of its flagship store and the debut of its couture collection.
Chopard, the renowned Swiss luxury jewellery and watch brand, celebrated the anniversary of its Landmark Prince’s flagship boutique in Hong Kong with an evening extravaganza dubbed ‘Chopard Art Evening’. The red-carpet event paid tribute to art and jewellery and was topped off with a special viewing of Caroline’s Couture, the first fashion collection designed by Caroline Scheufele, Chopard’s co-president and artistic director.
‘Chopard ART Evening’ which was held at SOHO House gave Hong Kong luminaries, celebrities, and VIP guests a viewing of a specially curated presentation of Chopard’s high jewellery collection and selected pieces from Caroline’s Couture.
Caroline Couture first made its debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival held in May on the French Riviera. Featuring just 50 richly textured and embellished couture looks, the collection was crafted in ways with each piece meant to complement the brand’s jewellery. Through this collection, Scheufele begins a new chapter for Chopard that weaves a conversation between jewellery and clothing, intending to create a perfect harmony between the two with elaborate designs, texture and fabric details that evoke the delicate and precise art of gemsetting.
According to Scheufele, the garments are as much about love as they are about lasting accoutrements, designed to complement the brand’s famed Red Carpet High Jewellery Collection. Indeed, the runway presentation of ‘Caroline Couture’ at Cannes was a stately spectacle which won praise from fashion critics.
Scheufele worked with a team of experienced couturiers on the collection and in a similar way to the brand’s pricey gems, each garment is sustainable, timeless, and designed to last a lifetime. Some ‘staple’ pieces will be on sale for more than one fashion season.
“I wanted to create a collection for women who, like me, want to dress in a way that is fully aligned with who they are today”, explained Scheufele. “Women in love with beauty – meaning true beauty, the kind that never goes out of fashion. Pure elegance. Clothes that can be cherished over time, worn in a variety of circumstances and in countless ways, without ever losing their value or relevance. A wardrobe like a jewellery collection, which time makes more and more precious because they are accompanied by slices of life and carry with them experiences, memories and memorable moments. It is this approach to jewellery that I wanted to transpose to clothing.”
As such, Caroline’s Couture was designed with jewels in mind, featuring mostly clean silhouettes in a variety of textiles such as chiffon, taffeta, duchess satin, silk cady and lace. Open necklines, bare shoulders, and decorations concentrated below the waist are adopted so as not to compete with the jewellery. A large proportion of the fabrics is sourced from Jakob Schlaepfer in St. Gallen, a Swiss manufacturer that has been a well-known supplier to Haute Couture since its inception. Some of the fabrics also come from the Gentili Mosconi workshops in Como, in particular the universally acclaimed jacquards, which have been worked and redesigned to meet the unique requirements of Caroline’s Couture.
In keeping with Chopard’s philanthropic effort to raise awareness of sustainability issues in the luxury industry, Caroline’s Couture embraces a charitable angle too – embroidery using Japanese beads, the smallest in the world, will be undertaken by the Kalhath Institute in India, a nonprofit educational centre which aims to preserve the art of hand embroidery. This task requires a high degree of patience and precision craftsmanship and is a tribute to the time that only true artisans are willing to devote to such endeavours. Each of these processes has been custom-made for the collection to develop extraordinarily sophisticated textures, echoing the jewels of the Red Carpet Collection created in Chopard’s Geneva workshops. Patterns from the jewellery pieces, such as flowers or the brand’s signature hearts, are woven throughout the fashion collection.
Standout pieces were gowns embroidered with art deco motifs, some of which took more than 2,000 hours to create. The pattern was also recreated in skirts. Each look, when paired with Chopard’s stunning jewels, was a sight to behold.
“A lot of the collection was designed with the idea of matching specific types of jewels — from the jewel tone of an outfit to patterns that would complement specific designs and cuts of stones,” said Scheufele.