In 1997, Mariah Carey released her seminal sixth studio album Butterfly, which marked her new-found freedom and evolution towards R&B and hip-hop.
The American singer and songwriter relates to the butterfly and its metamorphosis, and her butterfly ring serves as a talisman.
The dainty insect has been reinterpreted in fine and high jewellery pieces following a collaboration between Carey and Chopard.
Official Partner to the Festival de Cannes, the Swiss luxury brand is known for the high-jewellery Red Carpet Collection.
The collaboration came after Carey received a book about the Red Carpet Collection from Chopard co-president and artistic director Caroline Scheufele in December 2020.
The butterfly is also a style icon for the Swiss luxury brand, conveying renewed aspirations and a free-spirited approach to life.
Scheufele worked with the legendary songbird, known for her five-octave range, on designing an entirely diamond-paved high-jewellery set consisting of a necklace, earrings and a ring in Fairmined-certified ethical white gold.
The voluptuousness of the butterfly's wings is accentuated by sparkling diamonds, whose differences in size create a rich paved texture.
The design has asymmetrical wings surrounding a diamond heart. Around the neck and as an ear pendant beneath one of the butterfly's wings, round-cut and heart-shaped diamonds evoke sparkling drops of a waterfall.
The collaboration extends to the Happy Butterfly x Mariah Carey Collection of pendants, bangles, rings and earrings featuring Chopard's signature dancing diamonds.
When she was a teenager, Scheufele designed Chopard's first ever jewellery -- a clown pendant with small dancing diamonds twirling inside its belly.
In 1976, Chopard introduced the Happy Diamonds watch with mobile gemstones whirling within two sapphire crystals.
Likewise, the new Happy Butterfly pieces feature a transparently openworked heart in which a dancing diamond nestles between the sapphire crystals.
Four majestic wings unfold in a whole new way, masterfully reinventing the codes of symmetry that tend to impose certain limits on butterfly jewellery designs.
Entirely paved with diamonds or carnelian, the wings give amplitude and movement to the jewellery crafted in ethical rose or white gold.
Following Chopard's Sustainable Luxury philosophy, the diamonds are sourced from suppliers certified by the Responsible Jewellery Council.
