Harry Winston Opens New Salon In Milan

Founded in 1932 in New York City, Harry Winston still sets standards in the production of fine jewelry and high-quality watches. From acquiring some of the world’s most famous gemstones, including the Jonker, Hope, Winston Legacy and Winston Blue diamonds, to jeweling Hollywood’s leading ladies on the red carpet, Harry Winston has been a symbol of the best there is for more than eight decades.

Today the legendary ‘King of Diamonds’ and international luxury brand, announces the opening of its new retail salon in Milan, Italy. The salon is located in Via Montenapoleone, one of the most prestigious and noble shopping centers in the world. It houses Harry Winston’s exquisite jewelry and watch collections, including the finest diamonds and rarest gemstones available today.

The new, 3,821-square-foot salon is designed to reflect the elegance and intimacy of a private property. The house’s signature color palette of soft taupe and gray is used throughout, complementing classic Winston elements such as custom-made lacquers, bronze accents, and antique bronze furniture with immaculate marble floors and bespoke crystal chandeliers.

The interior design consists of special galleries for bridal fashions and collections that highlight the breadth of Harry Winston’s exceptional offer while offering customers the very personal shopping experience known to the house. Private showrooms provide the ideal environment for a discreet and truly luxurious shopping experience. Come into the beautiful world of Harry Winston.

Harry Winston
Via Montenapoleone 14
20121 Milano
Italy

Harry Winston opens a new boutique in Beijing

Harry Winston, the legendary ‘King of Diamonds’, and international luxury brand, announces the opening of its second retail salon in Beijing, China.  Located inside the China World Trade Center, the new 461-square meter salon will showcase the breadth of Harry Winston’s unparalleled jewelry and timepiece collections, including the rarest diamonds and gemstones available today.

The opening of our new China World Trade Center salon marks the House’s second location in Beijing and our sixth in China. Beijing, an epicenter for fashion and luxury, is an incredibly important market for the House. This salon will be our second largest in China, and through this opening, we are excited to have a larger presence in the city.

Nayla Hayek, CEO of Harry Winston, Inc.

Designed to capture the elegance and intimacy of a private estate, the impressive two-story space, with entrances accessible from both the ground floor and basement level, includes classic Winston elements. Past the ornate gilded entryway, guests will enter a grand marble foyer decorated with the House’s signature black and white starburst motif.

Throughout the interior, the House’s signature soft taupe and grey color palette serves as the perfect complement to custom designed lacquer, antique bronze furniture, and bespoke crystal chandeliers. Three private selling rooms provide the ideal environment for a discreet and truly luxurious shopping experience.

The basement level features a dedicated bridal area, accented with hand-beaded silk walls, that displays the breadth of Harry Winston’s exceptional engagement and wedding jewelry offering. A grand staircase leads up to the first floor where a special gallery for the House’s unique high jewelry collections highlights Harry Winston’s legacy of expert craftsmanship and innovative design.

Explore more detail of the Harry Winston Beijing China World Mall and schedule an appointment. Come into the beautiful world of Harry Winston.

Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia on the incredible family jewels featured in his new book

‘Once Upon a Diamond: A Family Tradition of Royal Jewels’ is a new coffee table book written by Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, a jewellery designer, gemologist and former senior vice president of the jewellery department of auction house Sotheby’s, whose heritage links him to great royal jewels of the past, and by Lavinia Branca Snyder.

‘Once Upon a Diamond: A Family Tradition of Royal Jewels’ is essentially divided in two sections: one of the grand jewels worn by the Prince Dimitri’s ancestors, and another one on the jewels he has designed himself. The cover emphasizes this, with an Indian inspired jewel of his own design juxtaposed over a photograph of Princess Olga, his grandmother.

Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia traces his ancestor’s history in Once Upon a Diamond: A Family Tradition of Royal Jewels. Published by Rizzoli with a foreword by fashion designer Carolina Herrera, the richly illustrated tome gave Prince Dimitri the impetus to further research the provenance of rare treasures, illustrating his family’s love for jewellery through generations and across European royal courts.

Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark photographed by Cecil Beaton in 1940 (collection of Prince Dimitri)

Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia recounts the enthralling exploits of his beloved family members and describes their extraordinary jewelry collections. Among the many royals whose stories are richly illustrated in this volume are his paternal grandparents Prince Regent Paul and Princess Olga of Yugoslavia; Grand Duke Vladimir and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (better known as Grand Duchess Vladimir); his great-grandparents Prince Nicolas and Princess Helen of Greece as well as his maternal grandparents King Umberto II and Queen Marie-José of Italy. Prince Dimitri uncovered surprising revelations about his family’s finery while researching his publication.

On the cover of the book, my grandmother wears an amazing tiara that we always thought to be from Cartier. After further research they discovered that when Grand Duchess Vladimir was in Paris on one of her visits to Cartier to order things she had the tiara with her and asked them if they could repair it as it was damaged. According to the Cartier Archives they did repair it but it was actually a Chaumet tiara!

Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia

Examples include the Vladimir tiara. Finished by Romanov court jeweller House of Bolin in 1874 for the Grand Duchess Vladimir – the wife of Emperor Alexander II’s son – the pearl and diamond design today forms part of The Queen’s collection of jewels, and is among the personal favourites of Prince Dimitri, and a hoard of Harry Winston diamond gems embellishing a triple-chignon updo his mother Princess Maria Pia sported for a 1960s photoshoot.

Princess Maria Pia wearing Harry Winston diamond gems in her hair (collection of H.R.H. Princess Maria Pia of Bourbon-Parma)

The exquisite photography and family albums of Grand Duchess Elena of Russia (later Princess of Greece and Prince Dimitri’s great-grandmother) present remarkable never-before-seen images of prerevolutionary life of the Russian imperial family, their court, and their many European royal family members and friends.

This luxurious tome also includes exclusive and previously unpublished designs by Prince Dimitri, which juxtapose uncommon materials and color in imaginative yet timeless forms.

Written by Lavinia Branca Snyder and Prince Dimitri, Photographed by New York based Mark Roskams. With a foreword by fashion designer Carolina Herrera, and an introduction by Francois Curiel, who is chairman of Christie’s Europe and Asia and head of its global luxury division.

• Hardcover : 288 pages
• ISBN-10 : 0847866912
• ISBN-13 : 978-08478-66915
• Product Dimensions : 10.25 x 1.15 x 13.38 inches
• Publisher : Rizzoli (September 8, 2020)
• Language: : English

If you love jewels with a royal lineage – breathtaking tiaras and a noble family that spans across Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece, Belgium and Russia, then you are sure to get lost in jewelry designer Prince Dimitri’s history… Come into the beautiful world of Rizzoli.

Pretty in Pink: Pink diamond auctioned for 44 million euros

 

The Pink Legacy, a pink diamond of just under nineteen carats, raised an amount of more than 50 million Swiss francs (over 44 million euros) at an auction at Christie’s in the Swiss city of Geneva. According to Christie’s, the American jewelery house Harry Winston, part of the Swatch Group, is the buyer. The expected yield of the diamond was estimated at 27 to 44 million euros.

The jeweler’s house has renamed the diamond to The Winston Pink Legacy. In 2014 Winston also bought a rare blue diamond for 23.8 million dollars, which was renamed The Winston Blue.

A colored diamond was once a deviation from the traditionally transparent gems. Meanwhile, however, this type of diamond has become an exclusivity. The gems get their color from nature. A diamond becomes yellow due to the presence of nitrogen, blue diamonds contain boron. But how does a diamond turn pink? Scientists do not agree on that yet.

The pink Pink Legacy is considered by connoisseurs as extremely unusual because of its weight and its intense, almost completely uniform color. Only one in 100,000 diamonds would have such a quality. A hundred years ago the diamond was found in a mine in South Africa. The diamond was once owned by the Oppenheimer family, a wealthy South African family that for generations dominated the trade in diamonds. The pink diamond with 18.95 carat is not only gigantic – there have previously been sold only four pink diamonds of more than ten carat – the stone is also very clear.

Normally, pink diamonds have imperfections. If not the Pink Legacy. Or, as Rahul Kadakia, head of Diamonds at Christie’s, says in the video: “It’s like finding a treasure”.

The high demand for these extremely rare colored diamonds has led to a sharp rise in prices in recent years. The Diamond Pink Star, an even bigger pink diamond, was auctioned by Sotheby’s in Hong Kong last year, for a record amount of $ 71.2 million (66.8 million euros). This is the highest price ever paid per carat for a pink diamond.

The Swatch Group is the largest watchmaker in the world. Well-known brands such as Swatch, Omega, Longines and Brequet are part of the company.

 

 

 

 

MB&F Horological Machine No.9 ‘Flow’

Maximilian Büsser and Friends, normally shortened down to MB&F, is a Swiss watch brand founded by Maximilian Busser in July 2005 and based in Geneva, Switzerland. After graduating with a master’s degree in micro-technology engineering, Maximilian Büsser’s first employer was Jaeger-LeCoultre where he spent seven years in their senior management team during a period of change and strong growth.

Büsser was appointed managing director of Harry Winston Rare Timepieces in 1998. During his seven years there he transformed the company into a well-respected haute horlogerie brand. Working with talented independent watchmakers on the  revolutionary Opus series of timepieces planted the seed for developing that concept further still.

In 2005 Büsser resigned from Harry Winston to form MB&F – Maximilian Büsser & Friends—with the ethos of acknowledging the contribution of the individuals who contributed to each project.

A lifetime car aficionado, MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser first channelled the visual cues of the mid 20th century in the 2014 HM6 Space Pirate, particularly in its ‘Streamliner’ SV editions. This year, MB&F goes even further and presents one of its most ambitious designs yet.

Yesterday MB&F released a new machine, the HM9. The new Horological Machine can be described only with superlatives. The HM9 wears the clear signatures of Maximilian Büsser and Friends. Horological Machine N°9 ‘Flow’ debuts in two titanium editions limited to 33 pieces each: – the ‘Air’ edition comes with a dark movement and aviator-style dial; – the ‘Road’ edition has a rose gold plated movement and a classic speedometer-style dial. Below the integral press release.

The Horological Machines from MB&F, of which this is the ninth, are about the furthest things from conventional watches and watchmaking that you can imagine. In the years since the first Machine came out (HM1 debuted in 2007) the Horological Machines have come in a bewildering variety of shapes and inspirations, from the bulbous convexity of the HM3 ‘Frog’ to the flying saucer-shaped HM7 ‘Aquapod’, to the most recent, automotive-inspired HM8 ‘Can Am’. Each of the Machines is essentially an act of horological deconstruction and recreation – the elements of a traditional wristwatch are re-engineered in order to produce a new kind of time-telling device that also doubles as wrist-wearable art.

Horological Machine No.9 ‘Flow’ is audacious in its design, not simply because of its unconventional form, but because of the extremes to which it takes this form. Mould-breaking, transgressive case shapes are nothing new to the MB&F Horological Machine collection, but HM9 has rejected all limits. Its extreme curves and acute angles required new manufacturing standards and techniques to obtain a complete milled and finished case.

MB&F produces high horological art, but the Machines are also deliberately playful, and intended to evoke a certain kind of nostalgic reverence for a child’s imagination. The newest Horological Machine, the ‘Flow’, celebrates the visual poetry of streamlined cars and aircraft of the 1940s and 1950s, in the days before, as MB&F says, ” … a time well before wind tunnels and CAD software imposed their hard logic and restrained creativity”.

The general design language of MB&F has reached, over the last 20 years, a certain kind of maturity and there is an assurance in the general variety of forms used in HM9 that will be familiar to long-time observers of MB&F’s work. There has always a bit of a Golden Age Of Sci-Fi vibe to the Horological Machines and HM9 is no different, with its twin lateral pods somewhat evocative (if you’re a Star Wars fan) of the iconic twin-pod Cloud Cars seen zipping around the airborne city of Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back.

Two satin-finished air scoops are mounted alongside the pods containing the oscillating balance wheels, evoking the raised vents that allow continuous airflow to high-performance motor engines.

However, the primary world from which the HM9 draws inspiration is the automotive realm – for scifi fans there may be echoes of Star Wars in HM9, but for automotive enthusiasts, there will also be a strong sense of the inspiration of early attempts at streamlining, such as Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion car (intended to be the ‘ground taxiing’ phase of a land-air vehicle) and more conventional, now-classic automobile’s like Pontiac’s Streamliner, which debuted in 1942.

You expect any Horological Machine to be, so to speak, symbolically multivalent and HM9 certainly evokes a myriad of designs from both real and fictional worlds, but it’s also one of the most mechanically sophisticated Horological Machines as well. Each of the twin lateral pods houses a separate balance wheel and escapement, while the central pod houses the mainspring barrel, as well as a differential, which averages the rate of the two independent balances and produces a single output for the time display.

In wristwatches, this type of mechanism was first pioneered by Philippe Dufour, in his Duality wristwatch. MB&F first used a variation on the mechanism (in which the tendency of the two balances to cancel out each other’s variations in rate is intended to produce better accuracy) in the Legacy Machine 2, but this is the first time it’s ever been employed in an Horological Machine.

HM9 will come in two variations – the Air version will have a dark movement and cockpit-instrument styled dial, while the Road version will have a rose gold-plated movement and speedometer-styled dial.

Brand: MB&F
Model: Horological Machine No. 9 “Flow”
Dimensions: 57mm × 47mm × 23mm
Case Material: Grade 5 titanium
Dials: Speedometer style for the Road variant; cockpit instrument style for the Air variant
Lume: UYes
Water Resistance: 30 meters
Strap/Bracelet: Hand-stiched brown calf leather strap with folding titanium buckle

The movement:

Functions: Hours and minutes
Winding: Manual
Frequency: 2.5 Hz (18,000 vph)
Jewels: 44
Additional Details: Two independent oscillators, coupled by a differential; hours and minutes on a vertical display

Price: $182,000
Availability: First pieces shipping now
Limited Edition: 33 of each version

Beauty doesn’t comes cheap (sometimes), with a price tag of $182,000, it’s not expensive, but a lót of money! Come into the beautiful and timeless world of MB&F.

 

 

 

 

 

Harry Winston Opens a New Boutique in Istanbul

Harry Winston, the legendary ‘King of Diamonds’, and international luxury brand announces the opening of its first retail Salon in Istanbul. Located in the world-class Emaar Square Mall, the 249 square meter Salon will Harry Winston’s exquisite jewelry and timepiece collections, including the finest diamonds and rarest gemstones available today.

Designed to capture the elegance and intimacy of a private estate, the new two-story Salon reflects a contemporary variation on the traditional Winston style. A soft taupe and grey color palette complements the custom designed black lacquer and antique bronze furniture, with bespoke chandeliers, hand-beaded silk walls and antique accents.

A grand marble foyer, decorated with a striking black and white starburst motif, displays the House’s most exquisite creations. Dedicated areas for Harry Winston’s high jewelry, bridal, and state-of-the-art timepiece collections, ensure clients receive the discreet and highly personalized shopping experience that the House is known for, while private selling rooms provide a luxurious space for the ultimate in exclusivity.

Harry Winston Istanbul is located at: Emaar Square Mall, Ground Floor No. 557, Libadiye Cd. No. 82, Üsküdar 34700, Istanbul, Turkey. Schedule an appointment to Harry Winston’s exceptional jewelry and timepiece collections in the new Salon. Come into the beautiful world of Harry Winston.

Emaar Square Mall
Ground Floor No. 557, Libadiye Cd. No. 82
Üsküdar 34700, Istanbul, Turkey

A glamorous pair of opera glasses by Harry Winston

The Broadway Glasses by Harry Winston are the star of this year’s high jewelry timepiece collection. Famous jeweler Harry Winston was founded in 1932 in New York, that storied era of Prohibition, Art Deco and the creation of glimmering legends. Fitting then, that Harry Winston should pay tribute to that gilded age of its birth with the new Broadway Glasses, part of its Haute Joallerie collection unveiled at Baselworld.

High jewellery doesn’t get more glamorous than this, and these stunning Broadway Glasses by Harry Winston are the most opulent opera glasses we’ve ever seen.

Diamonds, onyxes and emeralds cover a boxy gold and titanium body that is designed to mimic the opera glasses carried by society attendees to allow them to view stage productions from the distance of their private boxes. Fully functional with modern binocular lenses, the gems – two layers of 80 baguette-cut diamonds and six rows of 240 brilliant-cut diamonds – are arranged in a bold geometric pattern recalling the Art Deco spirit. A lone green emerald punctuates that white gleam, indicating the focus wheel.

There is also another little other feature here that you might miss in all the shine. On the delicate bridge of the binoculars, framed by black onyx and four emeralds, is a watch face. Set with 48 baguette-cut diamonds, the octagonal shape  of the discreet timepiece references Mr Winstons’ favourite diamond cut. A tiny button enables the timepiece to pop up when pushed, so time can be adjusted from the inside.

If you have to ask the price, you probably can’t afford it.

This entire delicate creation is held with a long handle, a tribute to classic lorgnette stems, made from 18-karat white gold and onyx marquetry, as well as 30 brilliant-cut and 14-baguette cut diamonds, evoking the bright lights of Broadway and the sleek, geometric aesthetic of the Art Deco era.

Society may have changed, and stage productions certainly have, but with the Harry Winston Broadway glasses in hand, relive the glories of a time gone by. Come into the beautiful world of Harry Winston.

 

 

 

 

Harry Winston, the glamour of New York City in the 1930s

The heady days, and even more inebriating nights, of New York City in the 1930s saw newly emancipated society women painting the town red, revelling in a freedom that proved to be intoxicating in its novelty. They did not go unaccompanied; jewellery clutches were their nocturnal chaperons, holding the few things every lady needs to survive a wild night in town.

The New York Companion high jewellery clutch is Harry Winston’s tribute to the heydays of its birth city. On the 18-carat white gold outer shell, a black glossy lacquer represents the inky darkness of night and acts as the perfect backdrop for the gems, which are arranged to mimic the lights and skyscrapers of the Big Apple. Eight baguette-cut rubies, 21 baguette-cut emeralds and 281 diamonds, set alongside mother-of-pearl panels, convey the bright lights of the city. A diamond skyscraper runs down the centre of the clutch, topped by a crown of black onyx. In this crown is a fabulous secret: swivel it to reveal a hidden dial, with which the time can be read discreetly.

This stunning three-in-one creation, offering women a high jewelry evening bag with a timepiece and vanity mirror, captures the intrinsic spirit of Harry Winston’s New York universe and reflects his passion for luxury and impeccable quality. Scintillating with 36.67 carats of diamonds, 3.22 carats of emeralds and 1.62 carats of rubies, this object of desire is the ultimate high jewelry companion for a night on the town.

If the exterior was inspired by New York’s nights, then the lightness of day beckons within. Mother-of-pearl marquetry gives the interior of the New York Companion a subtle sheen, while mirrors allow the lady to touch up her makeup with ease.

If the exterior was inspired by New York’s nights, then the lightness of day beckons within. Mother-of-pearl marquetry gives the clutch’s entire interior a subtle sheen, while mirrors allow the lady to touch up her make-up with ease.

Come into the beautiful world of Harry Winston.

 

 

 

 

HH Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III estate auction

Born Yvette Labrousse in 1906 in Sete near Marseilles, France. Begum Om Habibeh was the fourth and last wife of the late Sultan Mohamed Aga Khan III, the 48 hereditary Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims in direct descent from the Profhet Muhammad through his cousin and son in law Ali and his daughter Fatima. The couple were married in Switzerland on October 9th, 1944.

The late Begum, following travels to Egypt, had already converted to islam before her marriage. Throughout her life she demonstrated a strong attechment to the faith and to its traditions of philantropy and concern for the less fortunate.The Begum took a particular interestin issues affecting woman and children’s welfare.

HH. Begum Om Habibeh Aga Kahn III (Photo made and signed by Sam Levin, Signed to Roger Flor, 1er coiffeur Elizabeth Arden by HH. Begum Om Habibeh Aga Kahn III, 1959, private collection).

Following her husband’s death in 1957, the late Begum moved between Le Cannet, Paris, Geneva and Aswan. In Le Cannet she was held in particular esteem and was known for her generosity towards the eldery, through the establishment of a retirement home.

Before her death, the late Begum arranged that all her estate, other than certain bequests, be donated to the Aga Khan Foundation, Geneva, to the Bellerive Foundation, Geneva, and to her own Om Habibeh Foundation. Today, 15 years ago, on November 15, 2000 Sotheby’s held the auction of Her Highness’s jewels posthumously, with respect to her wishes.

HH Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III, her famous 5 row pearl-diamond neckless.

HH Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III, wearing her favorite 5 row pearl-diamond neckless, and  Harry Winston 51.85 carat diamond ring.

Highly important diamond ring by Harry Winston. Claw-set with a  step-cut diamond weighting 51.85 carats, between tapered baguette diamond shoulders, mounted in platinum

Magnificent diamond necklace. The front is decorated with a profusion of marquise and pear shaped and brilliant and tep-cut diamonds, continuing to the back with graduated step-cut diamonds, spaced by clusters of marquise and pear shaped and brilliant cut diamonds.

French fine pair of cultered pearl and diamond earrings. The cluster surmounts set with pear and marquise shaped and brilliant cut diamonds, each supporting a cultured pearl dropmeasuring approximately14.8mm in diameter, and are mounted in platinum and 18k gold. The pearl pendants are detachable. Her Highness the Begum was wearing them very often, in both ways, with and without its pearls. 

Another favorite pair of earrings for her where these pair of French diamond pendent earclips. The surmounts decorated with a cluster of pear and marquise shaped diamond, supporting tassels of graduated pear shaped diamonds. The clips are mounted in platinum 

 HH the Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III attends the ‘My Fair Lady’ ball, hosted by Hélène Rochas in the Bois de Boulogne in 1965. HH the Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III wore a gown of white lace and her favorite, also in her estate auction, her Bvlgari diamond and turquoise set. The set contains a  necklace, earclips and a bracelet that she is wearing in her hair, as the ‘first’ woman to do so, long before Princess Diana of Wales.

The auctions results totalled to SF41,249,800 – US$23,340,809 – £16,303,619 to benefit the aforementioned philanthropic in…stitutions in overseeing and supporting major international programs in health, education and rural development in some of the poorest regions of Central and West Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, as well as initiatives for the protection of the environment, conservation of natural resources and the safeguarding of human and animal rights.

Come into the beautiful world of Sotheby’s.

Elie Saab

Elie Saab was born in 1964, into a family with no links to fashion. In interviews he told that right from the beginning, ‘he dreamed only of escaping to fantastic faraway lands’. His first dress was created at the age of nine, for a younger sister; he spent all his spare time designing (and I’m not quite sure how his mother must have felt about her son taking his scissors to her curtains and tablecloths…). Word of his talent spread, and by the time he was a teenager, the most elegant women in the area were beating a path to this self-taught designer’s door. Astonishingly, at just 18, Elie Saab opened his own couture house with more than a dozen accomplished seamstresses!

Elie Saab Haute Couture dress (Click photo to enlarge).

Until he launched his debut fragrance, Elie Saab Le Parfum, this Lebanese designer was a well-kept secret shared by some of the world’s most elegant and best-dressed women: a creator of beautiful, often bejewelled and richly-embroidered couture gowns which often reference his Lebanese background, yet look so perfect on that glamorous red carpet.

The designer: Elie Saab

The luxury and detail of Elie Saab‘s designs soon won over the Middle East; today, he is the personal designer for many princesses: Lebanon’s ‘golden boy’, and that team of a dozen seamstresses has grown to over 100, producing between 800 and 1000 made-to-measure gowns. His inspiration might be 1950s Hollywood glamour, or the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright or Le Corbusier. And his philosophy? ‘I like “womanly women”,’ he explains. ‘Women who twirl their dresses with desire and pride. Ever since my childhood in Lebanon, I’ve examined the way they dress. I’ve always wanted to please them by flattering their curves.’ And his sole ambition, he adds, ‘is to inject beauty into the lives of women.’ Today, he splits his time between the Middle East and Paris, where he was invited by the French Federation of Couture to show his collections on the official calendar.

A secret like Elie Saab can’t be kept for long, of course, and the East-meets-West nature of his gowns have been sought out by women from around the world for those moments when they long to shine and stand out: a wedding, a gala event, an Oscars ceremony… It was Halle Berry who put Elie Saab on the map when she wore a dress to the 2002 Acadamy Awards. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Beyoncé, Dita Von Teese and Christina Aguiliera have all worn his dresses, which are nicknamed the ‘stars’ lucky charm’. For the rest of us, there’s the ready-to-wear and accessories, and his perfumes…

Halle Berry, one of the most beautiful women, wore a rare red diamond bracelet by Harry Winston to match her amazing elegant Elie Saab couture dress.at the Acadamy Awards, 2002 (Click photo to enlarge)

It’s fair to say that nobody quite expected the phenomenal success of this (then) little-known designer’s debut fragrance. It was perfume maestro Francis Kurkdjian who was chosen to interpret the richness of the designer’s work alive with fragrant notes and harmonies. As Francis Kurkdjian comments: ‘What I found fascinating in working for Elie Saab was the idea of interpreting light; I didn’t have any specific images in mind, just sensations: the whiteness of the sun at its zenith, radiant femininity, a modern interpretation of voluptuousness…’ This floral solar woody fragrance was actually created as an ‘ode to light’: armfuls of orange blossom (a memory from Elie Saab‘s Mediterranean childhood), sumptuous absolutes from grandiflorum and sambac jasmine, sensually underpinned by patchouli heart. And in the base, a cedar woody accord, drizzled with rose honey for a touch of sweetness’.

Elie Saab ‘Le Parfum’, 2011

Launched in 2011, in its very first year Elie Saab Le Parfum scooped the coveted ‘Fragrance Foundation Award (FiFi)’ for Best New Fragrance in the UK, the US and France, a phenomenal hat trick. Now it’s been joined by Elie Saab L’Eau Couture, also ‘signed’ by Francis Kurkdjian, in which ‘the green theme is given a delicately gourmand twist, based on the faint whiff of fresh almond from budding orange blossoms, Saab’s signature note’, and with ‘a fresh, radiant vanilla’, in its lingering finale.

Elie Saab is, as Vanity Fair observed, ‘remarkable for his ability to make clothes that make women feel beautiful’. To which we’d add: and now, for making fragrances which make women feel gorgeous, too. And with no time-consuming couture fittings required…

by Jean Amr