A collaboration between the music icon Mariah Carey and Chopard’s Artistic Director Caroline Scheufele gives wings to two jewellery collections inspired by the butterfly. One is the high-jewellery Chopard X Mariah Carey Collection featuring diamonds and white gold, while the other is the more colourful X Mariah Carey Collection featuring the brand’s signature happy diamonds.
The collaboration between Chopard and Mariah Carey coincidentally dates back to the Christmas of 2020. “The story of how I came to collaborate with Chopard is almost like a fairy tale,” says Mariah, the artist often called the ‘Queen of Christmas’ for her numerous Christmas-themed classics.
She continues, “There was this beautiful Chopard butterfly-themed silk scarf that Caroline surprised me with as a gift. It was just sitting there on the table with a note. The minute I saw it, I thought wow. I had just received the diamond award for one of my songs [All I want for Christmas is you].
“I really wanted to celebrate the moment and make it major, but I hadn’t told anybody yet. So I reached out to Caroline, and as we spoke about the concept, she started sketching this unbelievable butterfly diamond necklace. That’s still my most memorable moment in the process of co-designing this collection.”
The butterfly, one of the style icons of Chopard – conveying renewed aspirations and a free-spirited, light-hearted approach to life – also holds special significance for Mariah. ‘Butterfly’ was the name of the album that proved a real turning point in Mariah Carey’s career and life.
Released in 1997, the opus was full of new musical inspirations and helped her evolve towards R&B and hip-hop. It was also the album symbolizing her new-found found artistic freedom. The butterfly has since become a symbol of her artistic pride, and of her ability to reinvent herself. This fact is evidenced by a career that spans several generations.
Mariah is a complete artist, not only due to the extraordinary virtuosity of her voice – known for her five-octave range and texture – but because she is also a songwriter and composer. Mariah has sold over 200 million albums and written or co-written 18 of her 19 records that reached number one. Mariah’s collaboration with Chopard is, in a way, a natural extension of her creative talent.
The Chopard X Mariah Carey Collection offers a stunning interpretation of the butterfly, featuring an entirely diamond-paved Haute Joaillerie set consisting of a necklace, a pair of earrings and a ring. The pieces in both collections are made of Fairmined-certified ethical 18-carat gold and diamonds from suppliers approved by the Responsible Jewellery Council. This approach is in line with the “Sustainable Luxury” commitments undertaken by the Maison, as well as being essential in the eyes of Mariah Carey, whose many charitable commitments follow similar principles.
The energy and sensitivity of the R&B star seem to have been interpreted into this Haute Joaillerie set. A pair of asymmetrical earrings frame a face as though singing a tune. A necklace with a heart sculpts the place on the torso from which the voice takes its tone. A ring that captures the language of the hands, like a stage gesture accompanying the nuances of a musical score.
The voluptuousness of the butterfly’s wings in white gold is accentuated by the sparkling light of the diamonds, whose differences in size create an extraordinarily rich paved texture. Its asymmetrical wings surround a diamond heart that seems to impart its lively motion to them. Around the neck and as an ear pendant beneath one of the butterfly’s wings flows a river of round-cut and heart-shaped diamonds.
The pieces in the Happy Butterfly X Mariah Carey collection preserve the design and colour codes of Happy Diamonds, but have morphed into butterflies. Crafted in rose or white gold, the butterfly adorns a pendant, a bangle, a ring and a pair of earrings.
Four majestic wings unfold in a whole new way, masterfully disobeying the codes of symmetry that tend to impose limits on butterfly jewellery designs. Entirely paved with diamonds or carnelian, the wings of the butterflies in this collection give amplitude and movement to these talisman jewels through their asymmetry. At the centre is the transparent heart, in which a dancing diamond nestles between two sapphire crystals.
Commenting on the two collections and their significance, Mariah says: “This collection is really for everybody. You can go casual chic or be over the top, whatever. Chopard is known as the ‘maison joie de vivre,’ representing glamour and exquisite quality while maintaining the utmost ethical standards.
“I have a very specific connection to the butterfly, almost beyond the observable physical Universe. Okay, I’m being a little dramatic but we’re talking about diamond butterflies! – representing happiness, freedom and emancipation, darling. That makes me happy.”
