Caroline Gruosi-Sheufele, co-president and artistic director of the premium jewellery and watch designer Chopard, collaborated with luxury shoe designer Giuseppe Zanotti to produce what is now literally, the world’s most precious, jewel-encrusted shoes. This set of jewellery and highly prized footwear took several hundred hours of work by stone-cutters, shoemakers and jewelers in the Zanotti and Chopard workshops.
Their magnum opus comprises a unique set of pink satin shoes, crafted with diamonds, pink sapphires and rubies. You even get matching earrings to top it off. An antique collector at heart and passionate about jewellery, Zanotti was a natural partner for this endeavour, whose jeweled pumps have caught the attention of the rich and famous. To demonstrate the significance of gemstones, Chopard also organized a show at Cannes for renowned Parisian burlesque dancers performing “Crazy Diamonds” in various states of undress. All this glamour is for a charitable purpose however and the exquisite pairs’ debut was modelled on Anja Rubik at the amfAR - Cinema against AIDS benefit gala, on May 19, 2011 and auctioned away for 200,000 USD.
As official partner of the Cannes film festival for the past thirteen years, Geneva-based Chopard has been supportive of amFAR and its struggle against AIDS. The prestigious jewellery firm has had a regular presence on the red carpets of film festivals, from the Césars in Paris to the Oscars in Hollywood. The gem-set stilettos in question, all 12.5 cm in height, were decked in 600 gemstones amounting to 360 carats in total. And if that weren’t enough, the ankle straps strung with 22 carats of diamonds, 199 carats of pink sapphires, and 134 carats of rubellites have the dual function of detaching to form separate rose gold bracelets. Undoubtedly, the paired shoes with their corresponding earrings have taken accessorising to a whole new level.
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