Accessories have always played a peripheral role — they’re called accessories, after all, a name no one would ever give to the lead actors on stage. Yet for anyone who approaches fashion with greater nuance, things are shifting. Vivienne Westwood’s latest designer jewellery collection is a clear sign of this – attempted? – change. These aren’t statement pieces, nor are they messages we broadcast to the world. They’re actual fashion items — elements around which to build an entire look.

We live in an age obsessed with efficiency, with stripping away the superfluous, with minimalism practised more out of necessity than choice. And it’s precisely in this context that we might finally appreciate what the maison’s designers have created for the legendary Vivienne Westwood.

Talking About Ourselves? Perhaps

It’s an expansive collection, one that draws generously from a long Made-in-Vivienne tradition while reinterpreting the modern world with ease. In fact, several of the pieces in Vivienne’s collection gesture firmly towards the future — a future that for many other brands will remain entirely out of reach — rather than clinging to the past.

Naturally, most of the themes that made Vivienne Westwood iconic are present — or rather, all the symbols and vocabulary from the Vivienne Westwood dictionary. Bright colours, unusual metals in jewellery (including ruthenium finishes), and of course the iconic orb, which remains the axis of this collection (and very likely the next).

But these are anything but lazy choices. On the contrary, they’re thoughtful, intriguing, innovative — perfect for anyone with an eye for detail.

We’re tempted to call them “fractal” jewels, because the closer you get, the more details you notice — details that would escape a distant or inattentive eye. Yes, it requires the right gaze and the desire to look, but for those with depth and sensitivity layered within, these pieces hold no small number of surprises.

Which details? We won’t spoil the fun. You can already uncover a few on the website. And once they’re in your hands — or seen in-store — the rest will emerge in time.

Shedding Labels

Accessories are often a matter of etiquette. The jewellery world has imposed its fair share of rules over the years, many of them stubbornly resistant even as fashion became more permissive.

But it’s time to dismantle the last barrier: choosing and pairing jewellery exactly as we please, opting for combinations that are unconventional, unexpected, or governed solely by our own rules.

That freedom is now within reach. And it’s a journey we won’t walk alone, but one we can complete hand-in-hand with a designer who has already dismantled countless boundaries.

Almost all of them, truth be told. And judging by this latest collection, she’s now taken on the final one — the manual of “proper” jewellery.

It’s the last true luxury still reserved for the few: doing as one likes. Disregarding the rules — and better yet, writing and setting one’s own. It isn’t arrogance, but an expression of the highest value of all: the one that has always driven Vivienne Westwood’s collections and her catwalks. Freedom.