An exclusive look at the making of Dior’s latest hidden watch

An artist renders the timepiece using the gouache painting method. Courtesy Dior Joaillerie

The individual pieces are realised. Courtesy Dior Joaillerie

The pieces are assembled and tested to be perfectly fitted. Courtesy Dior Joaillerie

The stones are set by hand. Courtesy Dior Joaillerie

The final polishing and assembling. Courtesy: Dior Joaillerie

Of all the precious stones, opals can, arguably, lay claim to the most checkered history, having swung in and out of favour with alarming regularity. In a book published as early as 1907, entitled Precious Stones: for Curative Wear and Other Remedial Uses, author William Thomas Fernie outlines the conflicting beliefs surrounding this most controversial of gems.

In the Middle Ages, the opal was considered to possess an aggregate of all the special virtues attributed to other gemstones, since it combined so many different colours. And yet, one of the most prominent alchemists of the 14th century declared it “fatal to love” and responsible for sowing “discord between the giver and receiver”. In the 18th century, it was believed to cure weak eyes – in 1740 Marbodus, Bishop of Rennes, one of the world’s first lapidaries, went one step further and proclaimed that the opal could “confer the gift of invisibility on its wearer”. Russian tsars considered it to be an embodiment of the evil eye, while a cursed opal was believed to have been the reason for the downfall of five members of the Spanish royal family in the 1800s.

Perhaps most damaging to the opal's already fragile reputation was Walter Scott's 1829 novel, Anne of Geierstein. In the book, the baroness of Arnheim wears an opal talisman with supernatural powers – but when a drop of holy water falls on it, the opal turns colourless and the baroness dies soon after. So widely read was Scott's book that it turned popular opinion against the stone, and the opal became associated with ill luck and even death. Opal sales in Europe reportedly plummeted by 50 per cent as a result, and didn't recover for the best part of two decades. To compound all this, the stone is vitreous, making it notoriously fragile and tricky to set.

But Victoire de Castellane, artistic director of Dior Joaillerie, pays no credence to such things. The opal is her favourite stone and has long featured in her creations for Dior. Unsurprisingly, in the maison’s latest high-jewellery collection, Dior et d’Opales, the opal is the unequivocal star.

According to de Castellane: “The opal is a very poetic stone. It’s like an invitation to enter a fairy tale, to experience magic. When I look at an opal, I feel like I’m seeing the Earth from afar, the oceans, the archipelagos, and the reflections of stars on ocean waves ... I see it as nature’s gemstone par excellence, a stone that’s so intertwined with femininity, its connection becomes organic,” she explains.

The 27-piece collection features rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings, where the otherworldly beauty of opals is offset with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, amethysts and sapphires, to stunning effect. The collection, which was unveiled during Paris Haute Couture Week earlier this year, is notable as much for its craftsmanship as for the search undertaken for the stones.

As this exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Majestueuse Opal High Jewellery timepiece shows, a highlight of this collection is a series of jewel-encrusted bracelets that double up as watches.

Representing de Castellane’s first foray into jewels that tell the time, the timepieces are designed to be worn as bracelets, and feature a fiery explosion of multicoloured gemstones dominated by a cabochon-cut opal that swivels 360 degrees to reveal a diamond-encrusted watch dial.

The watches are powered by a quartz movement and come in eight different styles: in gradations of pink and blue and green; as a cluster of white diamonds with a single opal at the centre; or, in the case of the Majestueuse Opal High Jewellery timepiece, in a dramatic explosion of rainbow hues.

This watch is fashioned in yellow and white gold, and has a central black opal fringed with a combination of diamonds, pink sapphires, spessartite and tsavorite garnets, emeralds, yellow sapphires, amethysts, rubies and sapphires.

Read this and more stories in Luxury magazine, out with The National on Thursday, April 13.