Bopping to her 2008 hit L.E.S. Artistes is a well-dressed crowd laden with jewels. Is this scene a particularly glamorous Vegas wedding? No. In fact, the attendees tonight are jewellers, buyers and editors who have made it to this unlikely location for the Super Bowl of jewellery: this is the Couture Show.
Once a year, the jewellery world descends on Sin City to show its wares. The more nuts-and-bolts side of the industry (i.e. discovering loose gems and more commercial pieces) head to the JCK Show, a trade event, at the Venetian. The top jewellers, the artists and the bigger brands present their collections at the Wynn. And by the way, if you are going to do Vegas, the Wynn is the way to do it. The rooms are beautiful and touch-screen activated, the decor is chic, a bit like the Beverly Hills Hotel on acid, and the restaurants are fantastic. Don’t miss Delilah, the gorgeous art deco cabaret steakhouse that is rumoured to be the hardest reservation to get in America, not just Las Vegas.
I’ve come straight off an 11-hour 35-minute flight via Heathrow so coffee is needed as I head for Jardin, the hotel’s power breakfast spot. Tables are buzzing as renowned retailers meet with their most valuable accounts. I see the Udells from London Jewelers, the premier jewellery store of Manhattan and Long Island, holding court at a table nearby. I’m meeting with Nigora Tokhtabayeva, founder of Tabayer. Just to the side of my avocado toast is Tabayer’s new hard-stone choker, a supersized creation embedded with red jasper and brown diamonds.
I clock chokers as a trend as I head into the ballroom and see Eugenie Niarchos’s Venyx collection. Her fixed collars hang with foil-backed pendants of aquamarine. Niarchos considered her family history of shipping in her new collection, working with a company which reclaims plastics harvested from the ocean waters to make beads. These were studded with diamonds and mixed with Murano glass and pearls. The resulting pieces are hippie chic, perfect for a gig by Dead & Company (a band fronted by John Mayer and former members of the Grateful Dead), which Niarchos tells me she’s attending soon at Sphere, the futuristic ball-shaped concert venue next door.
One of my favourite parts of the show is seeing how everyone is wearing the jewellery. Marie Lichtenberg is particularly inspirational. The former Elle France editor-turned-jewellery designer is a vision in gold bangles, one of which is engraved with ‘God’s favourite’. Who’s to say she isn’t?
Hanging from her neck are oversized dice pendants in gold and wood and puffy letter pendants. I see a trend emerging here: large-scale charms and letters. Furthering this narrative is Lauren Rubinski, another Parisienne who comes each year to teach us all how to wear jewellery. Her large lucky-charm pendants clip onto the thick gold chains which have become her calling card. Most mind-blowing is her Fortuna pendant, an actual 3D hologram of luck motifs behind rock crystal and encased in a yellow-gold setting. She wears all her pieces with impeccable custom-made shirting monogrammed with her initials, made by her brother.
Bea Bongiasca is another jeweller I look at to see what’s next in jewels. Her candy-coloured enamel rings are a Gen Z favourite and are often seen on Dua Lipa. She is wearing a leather choker that has a silver coil dotted with enamel and thick gold squiggle ear clips. This season it seems everything is bigger, bolder and thicker. Nearby is Rebecca Zeijdel-Paz of Beck Jewels, a Brooklyn-based designer who has impeccable taste. Alongside her vintage St. John knit blazer is a long chain, multiple pendants and a gumball-sized bead necklace of tiger’s eye. It looks like beads are also going up in volume this season.
Something about the piped-in casino air makes the attendees want to misbehave. And as days wind down into evenings, cigarettes are indulged in and martinis are had. I see Anita Ko, the Beverly Hills queen of diamond jewellery, at the blackjack table ($100 is the minimum bid at the Wynn). Ko, in addition to showing her signature diamond tennis necklaces and new clip earrings, happened to host the premier party that week for said misbehaving. Alongside a few other jewellers, she rented a Fairway villa, one of the Wynn’s top suites, with a private pool, for a small gathering that resulted in 300-plus guests. The highlight of the evening? Ko’s team wheeling in luggage carts packed with hundreds of portions of burgers and fries from trendy California burger chain In-N-Out. Allegedly, the hotel was not pleased as they prefer to cater in-house.
SAUER
There’s just something about Sauer’s cord chokers I cannot get over. The thick silk, the oversized gems’ drops and the affordable (for the size of the look) prices. They are undeniably cool.
