Last week, Dior took VICs and fashion press to Venice to view its high jewelry collection, doing the world the public service of rebranding the city following the Bezos wedding of summer 2025. Instead of Kardashians floating down the canals betwixt hotel and party, Dior boated well-glammed VICs and editors to the Palazzo del Casinò, a casino-slash-event venue (the Venice Film Festival also takes place here) for dinner and a fashion show displaying the new high jewelry by Victoire de Castellane. Afterward, there was gambling, merriment, and preening.

The events seemed to follow the typical format for entertaining VICs — a couple of days of lavishing them with gifts in their hotel rooms, handwritten invitations that look nice on Instagram, and multi-course meals. One of the meals featured this course that looked like a circular cutout from Jonathan Anderson’s clover motif Lady Dior bag, set in some kind of herb oil.

What is it? Food or a slice of bag? Doesn’t matter — people don’t eat at these things. What does matter is these events served as a forum for purchasing and wearing new Dior clothes, and wearing said clothes next to the Dior oranges or Dior logos ranging in variety from plain white to made from bushes. The décor at the dinner that preceded the jewelry fashion show included, reports Galerie magazine, “towering, gilded palm trees; an abundance of greenery punctuated with Murano glass flowers as well as orchids; and Dior Maison place settings depicting playing card motifs along with a menagerie of intricate handblown goblets.”

It all looked terribly beautiful, much more elevated than Dior’s cruise runway, strewn with classic cars and therefore resembling a wealthy, middle-aged, Beverly Hills man’s garage. It was clearly more fabulous than whatever most of us were doing last week (talking to coworkers in Slack, reading the news, filling our cars with VIC-priced gas, generally not doing anything involving a menagerie of handblown goblets). And it’s kicking off yet another high jewelry season, which used to be less of a public thing but has become part of the fashion zeitgeist as brands look for ways to sell rich people more and increasingly expensive stuff.

Luxury brands have real incentive to push these exorbitant jewelry purchases with events that clients can’t say no to. And looking at a fashion show, for them, is probably more special than shuffling around a venue looking at jewels on velvet or whatever. While the apparel market was flat in 2025, jewelry was, per Bain & Co., “the standout category across regions in 2025, with leading players sustaining growth through focused clienteling and experiential activations.”

If you are new to high jewelry, it’s couture jewelry. Most marketing for it will remind you of its proper French name haute joaillerie. It’s basically fine jewelry on steroids. Like with couture and ready-to-wear, brands invest heavily in “storytelling,” informing clients that pieces resemble the waves crashing on the Mediterranean shoreline or some such. Dior’s new high jewelry collection was inspired by Venice because Christian Dior made looks for a big post-WWII party there once. (Luxury brands will take any excuse to show in Venice.)

Perhaps most importantly, high jewelry is wildly expensive. Everything shown in a recent WSJ. photo spread of couture and high jewelry was listed as “price upon request.” In 2023, Something About Rocks (what a name) reported that Bulgari’s “Mediterranea” high jewelry collection (also shown in Venice, see?), included over 400 designs, 90 of which cost a million bucks or more. The recent Dior high jewelry collection included, per Vogue, “a 7.03-carat cushion-cut solitaire” from which radiated 3,000 more diamonds; a "wisteria necklace" involving "4,100 diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and spinels.”

Other gems: “a nearly six-carat pink oval sapphire from Madagascar” and “a more than 10-carat royal blue sapphire from Myanmar.” And honestly, the Dior stuff looked modest compared to other high jewelry pieces that can run well into eight figures, made of jewels bigger than a tin of anchovies.

The Dior event seemed especially notable not only because it was so fancy that it kind of makes the Met Gala look like Trump’s low-rent rose garden patio (in fairness, oligarch money does pay for both), but also because it featured 20 new Jonathan Anderson-designed couture looks. Normally, a new Anderson-for-Dior couture dress would have the social media peanut gallery going for days. But this time, the clothes really served as the backdrop for the jewelry. That’s in part due to the media response: outlets that cover it largely do so out of obligation to please advertisers, and dutifully put the diamonds at the forefront of the coverage.

And look, getting to cover high jewelry is not a bad gig — I once attended an event with editors who went on press trips frequently and said the high jewelry trips were especially great because “you don’t have to go to a fashion show.” Seems like those days are ending.

Brands now push these pieces not just for special events (like high jewelry shows), but for any time of week and any time of day. “High jewelry should no longer be viewed as static, but as a true companion in daily life,” Chopard creative director Claire Choisne recently told W.

But of course, many people — even rich ones — don’t have enough places to wear all the fancy stuff they buy. Which is why the brands, as longtime “Retail Confessions” readers know, have to come up with parties and events that will give VICs a place to wear all of these clothes and all of this haute joaillerie. It’s all very Emily in Paris, romanticizing marketing exercises as though they are something more.  

Billionaire Stylist Reveals Why Her Clients Don’t Want to Shop

One important intermediary between brands and billionaires who might be in the market for haute joaillerie? Personal stylists. Increasingly, luxury brands are embracing them as intermediaries with buyers. On the Back Row podcast this week, I interviewed Mary Gonsalves Kinney, founder of MGK style, personal stylist to VICs ranging from politicians to tech executives to athletes.

“I have clients that are badasses in their industries, top of the game, and they will not walk into a Louis Vuitton because they're just like, ‘I don't even know where to start. I don't want to do it.’ Or like Loewe, they'll walk in and it's so cool, but it's kind of weird and they don't know how to wear it, so they just get intimidated and walk out,” she said. “They'd rather just be able to be in the comfort of their home and make decisions quietly with me, be honest about how they feel on certain things and not feel like they're hurting people's feelings.” 

Her process for styling people involves going to their closets where she’s sometimes “shocked at how little people have,” she said. “Sometimes people have — I'm not kidding — five pairs of pants, two tops, and a couple of jackets, and then one pump, one sneaker. That's what I've witnessed a lot, especially in the tech world.” She then pulls 300 pieces for a styling session where, after about three hours, people get tired of trying things on. They can spend anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 in a session with her.

In the full episode for Premium subscribers (listen in Apple and Spotify) hear about some of her craziest requests — and why she’ll talk clients out of buying Himalayan Birkins.

Vogue Weddings Rage Bait

Vogue published the “real budgets” of seven weddings featured in its famous “Weddings” section. The cheapest — a “backyard wedding in France” — was priced at $40,000. The most expensive — a “lavish wedding weekend in Tuscany” — was roughly $1.3 million.

The average cost of these weddings is $389,074. The average photographer cost was roughly $26,000; florals $29,500; planner $33,000; food and drinks $63,000; and fashion $30,000.

Instagram commenters accused Vogue of publishing “misinformation” owing to some figures, like 500 euros for “florals” in a backyard wedding in France. Others were upset the magazine didn’t itemize cakes (“a missed opportunity to educate couples on what thoughtful, professionally executed cake design truly costs”). Others called it “out of touch.” People were also upset that the photos Vogue used in its carousel were not the actual weddings they itemized (which was the case because they allowed couples to share these costs anonymously — a wise move given all the projectile tomatoes in the comment section).

A lot of people probably didn’t read the actual story, but its tone is so very Vogue. “There is a long overdue need for greater price transparency in the wedding space — especially as many couples find themselves overwhelmed and over budget as they craft their special day,” stated the intro, framing the piece as a public service for engaged people everywhere. So now you know: if your flowers come out to $38,000, consider getting another quote.

Are Rockstuds the Dotcakes of Shoes?

Ever since Miranda Priestly sashayed through The Devil Wears Prada 2 trailer in a pair of red Valentino Rockstuds, these shoes have been back in the fashion discourse. But are they clickbait/shortform video bait — the dot cake of shoes — or a real thing people are buying?

Elle says a “Rockstud Renaissance” is upon us. Sure, Alessandro Michele did bring them back when he started designing Valentino. And celebrities who borrow clothes are wearing the shoes for things they surely borrowed clothes for.

But while I think we can safely credit The Devil Wears Prada 2 for thrusting the shoes back into our feeds, I’m not convinced these are an “It” shoe reborn. And it’s worth remembering that the film’s costume designer Molly Rogers said she didn’t even want Meryl Streep wearing them.

“I had gone forward to Milan, where we were gonna shoot some scenes. I was not there that day when they were shooting another scene, and they just popped the shoes on Meryl. I had chosen another shoe,” she said on the Vogue podcast. "I got panicked phone calls from assistants saying that the marketing team had decided that they liked this other shoe which, at the time, I took great offense to because I knew that a marketing person didn't know anything about a Rockstud, and I did not think it was appropriate for Miranda to wear a Rockstud.”

Plus, you can find them marked down all over the internet.

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