May is a month when many things blossom: cherry trees, pollen allergies, and Charlize Theron, 50 years of calibrated freshness, as the new incarnation of Dior high jewellery. Yes, you read that right. For the first time ever, the French fashion house has decided it’s time to slap a face as smooth as it is retouched on its cast-iron, multi-zero charms.
And who better than Charlize, Hollywood star recycled as luxury icon and mistress, to sell the dream mounted on rose gold and marquise-cut diamonds? Under the penetrating eye of photographer Mario Sorrenti, the former queen of Mad Max’s post-apocalyptic stunts struts her stuff in jewellery with a name so evocative you’d think you were reading a Michelin-starred menu: Milly Dentelle Couture Fleurie, an overpriced floral embroidery that looks like it’s been lifted from grandma’s lace tablecloth.
The highlight of the necklace: an 8-carat yellow diamond, known as Fancy Vivid, probably flashy enough to dazzle a private jet on landing. Old-fashioned burglars are salivating over it, and Kim Kardashian is breaking out in hives.
And there’s more to come. In another image of luxury survivalist winter poetry, Charlize sports the Blue Iced Forest, a jewellery version of the toile de Jouy revisited Game of Thrones-style: platinum foxes, set greenery, and an 11-carat Malagasy sapphire as the cherry on the necklace.
A year after being made LVMH’s ambassador for skincare and diamonds (I guess they go together), Charlize continues to prove that you can talk about the ‘alliance between art, know-how and dreams’ without bursting out laughing. A special mention goes to the château’s publicist, who dared to call her an ‘icon’… without specifying whether she was talking about Sainte-Thérèse or an NFT. Finally Dior sells dreams, but above all, a lot of illusion.