The third time is a charm for the collaboration between Cate Blanchett and Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of watches and jewelry Francesca Amfitheatrof to create her latest Cannes Film Festival red carpet look.
“I’ve been working with Francesca on trying to find as many ways as possible to use the same jewelry,” she told WWD in a suite overlooking the Mediterranean just before she stepped onto the red carpet Monday night.
“I’ve worn so many of her pieces wherever she has worked over the years,” Blanchett said. The Oscar winner is such a fan she wrote the foreword to Amfitheatrof’s book “Fantastical Jewels” last year.
“Obviously, what she’s trying to do at Vuitton is really incredibly strong,” she said of what she called the “Amfitheatrof twist.”
“I’m such a huge admirer of her reference points. She’s got so many fantastic, interesting left-field references that she brings to bear. And the fact that she’s into reworking pieces, and going back into the archives, but also finding offcuts and previously used discarded jewels, just [demonstrates] that we don’t always have to use something new,” Blanchett said. “I’m so excited that she’s alive to the possibilities.”
This is the third time Blanchett has collaborated with Amfitheatrof on repurposing materials from past collections to create a new piece.
Through their collaborations, the duo have created high jewelry with an edge. Witness Blanchett’s BAFTA piece from last February, in which they created a cross-body pearl chain that hung like a harness, and the same ceremony a year prior, when they created a pearl piece that sat on the neck then swirled and draped over the shoulder like an epaulette.
Cate Blanchett
Stéphane Feugère/WWD
This time they took archive pearls and diamonds — 49 white Ayoka, 33 gray Tahitian and 633…