How did the universe become universal in fashion? A new collection taps into infinity

The L.A. universe doesn’t start or end in Beverly Hills. Depending on who you talk to, it doesn’t even cross its path. But on a recent warm afternoon, a celestial kingdom existed inside a crisp room at the Beverly Estate, where the Tiffany & Co.’s new Tiffany Céleste collection was on display (and scenes of “The Bodyguard” and “The Godfather” were once filmed). The sun, moon and stars are reliable motifs that fashion has turned to again and again over decades. A universal inspiration in its truest sense. Tiffany & Co.’s new high jewelry offering is one of the latest collections to follow in this vein. Inspired by the designs of late, iconic Tiffany jewelry designer Jean Schlumberger, and his preoccupation with the cosmos, the collection is designer Nathalie Verdeille’s second with the house.

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Tiffany Céleste is punctuated by six chapters: Wings, Arrow, Constellation, Iconic Star, Ray of Light and Apollo — all visual or spiritual themes that for Tiffany & Co. evoke the endlessness of the world around us. These are the kinds of pieces that shift the energy of a room. I stand in front of the Iconic Star suite — clusters of blue zircons, diamonds, aquamarines and mother of pearl designed to look like a smattering of stars in a constellation — and I trip on my words. I stare so long that it doesn’t feel real, so deeply that it feels as if I might fall into the jewels. I hover over them, careful not to breathe so that no precious stone gets fogged up. While touching them is not technically illegal, it feels as though it might as well be. Who am I to reach for a star?

Design inspired by worlds beyond our full comprehension is a tried and true tradish. Remember galaxy print leggings? A piece so ubiquitous in the early 2010s that it’s now part of our collective villain origin story. Looking back on the Tumblr archives, it seems destined, written in the stars, if you will. They weren’t always so tragically haunted, a reminder of how desperately we wanted to seem different, out there, or even worse, quirky. Because once, that ravenous desire for uniqueness — seen in our skin-tight lycra with a cartoonish depiction of what looks like the Milky Way, worn with studded Jeffrey Campbell Litas for good measure — was a vehicle powerful enough to launch someone into transcendence. Think of Christopher Kane’s 2011 resort collection, the galaxy print legging’s high-fashion cousin. Kane described his inspiration behind the collection, which utilized the motif of a nebula seen from the Hubble telescope, as "the idea of explosive outwards expansion," Vogue reported back then. Chanel, Alexander McQueen, Gucci, Rodarte have all presented collections that take, in literal and symbolic representations, from the universe.

The Tiffany Céleste Wings suite, which symbolizes “flight and fantasy” as per the brand, utilizes layers of diamonds and metal jutting out in contrasting directions, resulting in pieces that look like mini angelic creatures. One of the signature pieces of the suite, the platinum and 18-karat yellow gold necklace with a 20-carat diamond at its center and diamond accents throughout, was worn by J.Lo on the Met Gala carpet earlier this year, paired with a sheer Schiaparelli gown. An angel from the block (the question still remains: which block?). At the Beverly Estate, the Ray of Light suite, worn with a yellow skirt suit by a model lounging by that famous turquoise pool, serves as a portal for the light to come in. The red spinel on one of the necklaces — which also converts into a tiara — acts as its own version of the black and white spiral patterns used by hypnotists, affixing the eyes.

Why is this a thing? Why did Alessandro Michele put spaceships on a dress in his fall 2017 ready-to-wear collection for Gucci? Or why did Schlumberger himself reference the brilliance of sun rays in his archival pieces or the all-powerful star in his old design sketches? There are ideas that feel too big to not try to distill in something like jewelry, art or fashion. The galaxy, the stars and their dust are a part of us, or we are a part of them, according to the outdated earnest memes on the internet. There is something inherently mysterious about celestial bodies, in such a way that it becomes scary if you think about it for too long. (I am of the belief that it’s none of my business.) But the truth is, we’d like nothing more than to be beamed up. We look to the universe for guidance, for understanding, for connection. See the way we reflexively ask about someone’s Big Three when the conversation needs resuscitation on a whack date, or the way we hang onto the every word of L.A. celesbian astrologer Chani Nicholas.

We’d rather turn something intangible like the stars, and all the mythology we’ve assigned to them since the literal beginning of time, into something so tangible that we can literally hold it in our hands. A piece in the Tiffany Céleste collection, part of the Constellation suite, is a boulder of a ring in platinum and 18-karat yellow gold. Over 25 carats of diamonds surround the band, and an unenhanced pink sapphire sits at its center. The sapphire, the color of ripe dragon fruit, is cut in such a way that it appears to contain multitudes. How do you digest infinity? Turn it into a one-of-one ring you only wear on special occasions.

Production: Mere Studios

Models: Eldric Barnes, Mya West

Makeup: Leslie Castillo

Hair: Adrian Arredondo

Production assistant: Mark Millner

Photography assistant: Kabir Affonso

Styling assistant: Neko Baker

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.