“I love how outside of the box, contemporary, and artistic Loewe is,” Taylor Russell told Vogue of the scarf-detail, sorbet-yellow chiffon dress she wore to the Venice Film Festival premiere of Maria last week. Less-than-traditional thinking was clearly on the mind of the Canadian actress’s stylist Jahleel Weaver, because when it came to the look’s priceless accompanying jewelry pairing, Russell chose to wear a Tiffany Co. necklace–featuring a gobstopper-size pear-cut diamond pendant–backwards. Thanks to Russell’s gamine pixie crop, the necklace’s central 11-carat stone twinkled alluringly at the nape of her neck, meaning that paparazzi were craning their necks for that 360 degree full-look view.
We can thank the 2024 Venice red carpet for several themes this year: throwback vintage, powdery hues and an abundance of prom-night ruffles. And an affinity for wearing jewels your own way. Tapping into a new erogenous zone, Cate Blanchett has made a case for wearing pearls strung over her bare shoulders since Cannes Film Festival in May. Blanchett–an actress who makes a trailblazing case for rewearing red carpet pieces–chose a length of repurposed white Akoya and grey Tahitian pearls from Louis Vuitton’s high jewelry collection for the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice premiere, a design she also wore on La Croisette with a Haider Ackermann X Jean Paul Gaultier gown. Ncuti Gatwa–a leader when it comes to men’s red carpet jewelry (think Cameron Hancock silver breastplates, galaxy-like David Yurman brooches and Tiffany Co. rings worn over latex gloves), also usurped the idea of wearing earrings as a pair, choosing instead to wear a a fluid Giorgio Armani tuxedo with a single geometric Messika ear cuff.
In recent years, high jewelry designers have leant into the possibility of crafting breathtaking pieces that are worn in unconventional places. “I created my brand to let people wear diamonds wherever they want on their body,” Messika founder Valérie Messika previously told Vogue. She favors an ankle sprinkled with diamonds, rose, white and yellow gold, just like Dior Joaillerie’s creative director Victoire de Castellane, whose latest Diorama and Diorigami collection featured bejeweled velvet anklets. “Jewelry can be worn anywhere,” she explains. “It’s very sexy to me… I can’t stop watching someone who is wearing sparkling things.”
Taylor Russell joins an elegant line of women who have chosen to take the rear view on the red carpet, from Princess Diana, who wore a long string of knotted pearls at the Back to the Future premiere in 1985, to Ashley Olsen, who wore a figurative lizard necklace, which appeared to snake down her bare spine, at the 2010 Met Gala. When Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway won their respective Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Oscars at the 2013 Academy Awards, they too chose necklaces which draped down the nape of the neck, while wearing voluminous Christian Dior haute couture and pastel-pink Prada.
Nape, back, shoulder, ankle: the new erogenous zone to favor is entirely up to you.