I fell in love with a housefly — Boucheron’s housefly

It takes a unique pair of eyes to see beauty in windswept oat grass, prickly thistle stems, and common insects. And if there is one high jeweller capable of translating nature’s humble denizens into a work of art, it is the defiantly unconventional Boucheron.

In its latest Untamed Nature collection, the house’s creative director, Claire Choisne, pays homage to the littlest and most overlooked in their rawest, most unrestrained form. And this appreciation for nature in its imperfections is a glorious artistic inheritance from founder Frederic Boucheron.

Unlike his contemporaries, who celebrated regal blooms and noble beasts, the 19th-century visionary was fascinated by unassuming flora and fauna. In addition to the ivy climbing the arcades of the Palais-Royal, where he established his first boutique in 1858, his repertoire also included wildflowers, shrubs, beetles, and moths.

He was so intent on rendering the natural world accurately down to its tiniest details that he built a reference library of over 600 works, including the tremendous scientific treatises of his time. Brimming with what others would consider insignificant and undesirable — languid plants, twisted leaves, and even wilted flowers — the maison’s archives are a remarkable testament to his pursuit of poetic realism.

In Choisne’s bold resurrection of these motifs, in a world where such natural elements are becoming more transient and rarer by the day, this 28-piece collection preserves their precious memory for eternity with an elevated dimension — as transformable jewels that blur the lines between wearer and wilderness. 

Lingonberries drape around the neck in a rambling cascade, feathery reeds unfurl in the hair, ivy coils around the wrist like a creeping vine, insect wings shimmer with iridescence, and beetles crawl over your torso. Here, high jewels that should have been formal take a carefree spirit.

The innovative variety of techniques needed to realise these entities’ complex, flexible, yet fragile form is mind-blowing. Some examples of exceptional finesse from Boucheron’s atelier include intricate articulation systems, fine openworking, mechanisms for trembling leaves, pave and snow settings, and fancy diamond cuts.

Made lightweight, sculptural, and ultimately, multi-wearable, these creations are a powerful reminder that beauty is not just something to be admired — it is something to be lived. Choisne, one of the most innovative talents in 21st-century jewellery design, reveals more about her design philosophy.

How have you interpreted Frederic Boucheron’s vision of nature?

At Boucheron, every January, we present a Histoire de Style collection that pays tribute to the legacy of Frederic Boucheron. I delve into the maison’s archives to contemporise heritage pieces each time. Nature has been a source of inspiration for all the jewellers at Place Vendome in Paris.

Still, our founder wanted to show it as something humble rather than sophisticated and capture its vitality, vivacity, and imperfection.

When I design a piece or a collection, I want it to carry a message, a vision, and a unique emotion to each individual. Like a piece of art, I genuinely believe that high-jewellery can go beyond itself, and its beauty can invite contemplation. This year, I decided to take it a step further. Nature is so untamed that its sizes and possibilities demonstrate its invasion of women’s and men’s bodies, reclaiming its rights over the individual. 

How do you approach conceptualising a new collection?

The studio and our high jewellery workshop are both located at 26 Place Vendome. As a result, we exchanged a lot daily and worked hand-in-hand. Generally, I share my dreams and thoughts with the studio team to imagine a collection, and then the exceptional, time-honoured skills of Boucheron’s jewellers bring our creations to life. 

There is no “ritual” because our work method is quite unconventional. Because we do not compromise our vision, we often encounter challenges that lead us to reconsider design or materials and find solutions.

Nothing is set in stone, so we must be very agile in our thinking. This experience has been thrilling and inspiring for me.

Boucheron is at the forefront of multi-wear jewels. How is that expressed here?

We aim to create comfortable pieces because we want high-quality jewellery to come out of its safe. The same idea applies to transformability — we want people to choose how to wear their pieces for different occasions. Boucheron never imposes; Boucheron proposes. 

Untamed Nature counts 28 pieces and 116 multi-wear possibilities. As I wanted to demonstrate nature invading the body, our artisans worked on many hair and head jewels transformable into brooches.

The primary consideration was the tension between the search for lightness and movement inherent in nature and the desire to convey its strength through XXL volumes. Our craftsmen had to work with metal structures, sometimes only a few millimetres thick. They multiplied the swaddling and opened up the metal as much as possible to make the pieces comfortable to wear. 

The Fleur de Carotte brooch is your contribution, not drawn from the archives.

When I was walking through fields, I was surrounded by carrot flowers. I was captivated by their beauty and humility. I knew I wanted to introduce this wildflower into Boucheron’s encyclopedia through this collection. 

What I love about Fleur de Carotte is that its fluffy appearance calls for each tiny white flower, all different from each other, to be painstakingly positioned in the cluster. The technical complexity of this piece — which can be worn as a brooch or a hair jewel — lies in using three different types of setting and bezel. Its construction makes the light dance in a beautiful play of reflections.

What were some significant technical innovations showcased?

One of the biggest challenges was imitating the organic, realistic look of plants and insects so that the jewels seemed almost alive. The Chardon (thistle) set is a good example, as realism is pushed to its extreme on both the front and reverse sides. Using computer-aided design, the artisans successfully reproduced the outlines, 3D contours, and details yet ensured that this prickly-looking piece was still comfortable to wear. 

Similarly, on the back of each creation, flame-shaped openwork gives an organic effect while reducing the piece’s weight and enhancing the stone’s brilliance. Such rigorous craftsmanship can accommodate a variety of diamond cuts. The artisans studied the actual dimensions of plants and insects and then hand-carved the wax sculptures for optimum precision. 

As we wanted to represent an alive nature, we crafted imperfections. For instance, on the Rosier (rose bush) necklace, you can see twisted leaves or an unhatched bud. 

What is the statement you want to make here?

I want to demonstrate that we can love nature without idealisation — that what we have on earth is a gift and that beauty can be found everywhere as it already exists. Having a modern eye on yesterday’s archives, we also aim to create the archives of tomorrow. 

As a celebrated creative, do you feel the pressure to outdo yourself?

I do not really feel any pressure to “surpass” myself. Boucheron CEO Helene Poulit-Duquesne always encourages me to go further in my creative process, and she trusts me. New sources of inspiration always strike by travelling. Born by the ocean in the south of France, I’ve always kept this link with nature because it’s rooted in me.

As a result, I need to get away from the city regularly, especially at my seaside home in Portugal. 

You’ve already created a ring that stores the sound of water. How more radical can a designer get?

At Boucheron, innovative materials and techniques are always chosen based on how they will serve the collection’s purpose, but we never initiate innovation for its own sake. 

Having shared water’s preciousness in the 2024 Carte Blanche Or Bleu collection, I wanted to go even further. Inside the Quatre 5D Memory ring, we managed to encode the sound of waves for billions of years using an ultra-fast nanostructuring technique. 

I am particularly proud of this piece because it proves that we have still not reached the boundaries of jewellery. We will continue to push them to express the strength of our vision entirely: Boucheron has been the most stylish and cutting-edge French high jewellery maison since 1858.