Chopard brings a playful edge to its red carpet-worthy high jewellery

Orchids earrings in titanium set with four black cabochon-cut opals, brilliant-cut sapphires, tsavorites and tourmalines

Chopard’s annual Red Carpet Collection is usually unveiled in May, at the Cannes Film Festival, of which the Swiss house is a sponsor. The house first partnered with the Festival in 2007, making 60 unique pieces to mark the 60th anniversary, and it has added a piece every year, so the 2020 high jewellery collection comprises 73 handmade jewels worthy of the Cannes red carpet.

Of course, none of them were paraded on La Croisette this year, but one can easily imagine Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz, Cate Blanchett or Julianne Moore beaming in a triple-layer diamond necklace strung with a 90 carats of heart-shaped diamonds, or waving at the crowds, a 15ct diamond ring dazzling in the flashlights.

Necklace in ethical 18-carat white gold set with 90 carats of rose-cut heart-shaped diamonds, plus marquise-cut and brilliant-cut diamonds

Blanchett, especially, would find plenty to love. The actress is renowned for her avant garde taste in jewellery (remember those shrimp earrings, also by Chopard, she wore in 2014?) and the Ginkgo earrings, chandeliers of overlapping tsavorite and yellow sapphire-studded gingko leaves, hung with pear-shaped emeralds, would look majestic on the red carpet - or anywhere else, for that matter.

Gingko earrings in ethical 18-carat rose gold and titanium set with pear-shaped emeralds, yellow sapphires and tsavorites

Caroline Scheufele, Chopard's artistic director, was clearly in a playful mood as she designed a series of diamond-set animal cocktail rings; a quizzical bear, a smiling seal, a pair of hugging polar bears. These mischievous characters call to mind the first piece of jewellery she ever designed for her family’s watchmaking company - an articulated diamond-set clown.

Another highlight of the collection is not a piece of jewellery at all, but a watch: albeit one set with over nine carats of diamonds. With plumicorns of trapeze-cut diamonds and a beak of brilliant-cut stones, its eyes are two guillochéd watch dials, surrounded by rings of trapeze-cut multi-coloured sapphires, and there’s something of the hypnotist about its gaze.

Owl timepiece in ethical 18-carat white gold, set with brilliant-cut and trapeze-cut diamonds as well as trapeze-cut multicoloured sapphires

For all the classic elegance of Chopard’s drop earrings and technical virtuosity of featherweight titanium earrings, it’s this little guy that tugs the heartstrings most. Big enough to attract attention even from a (social) distance, it’s a conversation-starter if ever there was one: and aren’t we all in dire need of new material?

More 2020 high jewellery

• Bulgari's Barocko high jewellery collection pays tribute to the pomp and grandeur of the Eternal City

• Chaumet pays homage to the 'couturier of jewellery' in its new Perspectives collection

• Piaget transports us to the jungle with Wings of Light, its joyous new high jewellery collection

• Mother nature meets technological prowess in Boucheron's new Contemplation high jewellery collection

• Diamond-set chains and kaleidoscopic pieces shine in Pomellato's first ever high jewellery collection

• Dolce & Gabbana's Alta Gioielleria collection took holiday jewellery to new extremes

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