Nathalie Verdeille on bringing Tiffany & Co’s iconic Bird on a Rock into fine jewellery for the first time

The Wings pieces alternate platinum and 18-karat gold in bands, with diamonds of varying sizes set directly into the platinum without prongs or beads, so nothing interrupts the metal’s silhouette and the brilliance of the stone. “This technique transforms precious metal into something unexpectedly fluid,” she says, “giving the collection its distinctive sense of movement, texture and light.” Each wing is individually sculpted and hand-polished before being fitted against its neighbour, building up layers that resemble the overlap of real feathers.

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Allowing for two Wings pieces to be stacked together created a separate conundrum. The scalloped edge of one design is built to sit precisely inside the feather-shaped silhouette of the next, a fit that Verdeille says had to be resolved early in the design process and then reworked continually as the collection developed. “It had to be achieved, to create pieces that could converse with one another,” she says of the concept. Designing a ring as a single object is one discipline; designing it as one of a pair that must lock together in multiple orientations is another; she describes the two pieces shaping each other through a long back-and-forth, “until they settled together in complete harmony”. The tolerance for error is small: even a slight shift in one wing’s edge would leave a visible gap where the two pieces meet.

Making the convertible Wings earrings meant designing one item that worked as four separate pieces of jewellery. Worn as full drop earrings or reduced to studs, each configuration had to stand on its own rather than reading as a partial version of something else. “The stud had to possess the same beauty and presence worn alone as it did when paired with the drop,” Verdeille says. Getting there meant refining curve, proportion and volume across every version until, as she puts it, each composition “feels entirely natural, as though it was always meant to exist that way”, rather than betraying the mechanism that allows it to change.

When asked what she wants people to understand about Bird on a Rock, Verdeille highlights the motif’s history rather than just its craftsmanship. “For over half a century, Bird on a Rock has epitomised joy, optimism and possibility,” she says. “In this new chapter, Bird on a Rock takes flight in two expressions: the familiar figural bird and the abstract Wings motif.” Together, she says, they tell a story of freedom and transformation, “reminding us that the most captivating jewellery isn’t just beautiful, it triggers a feeling, an emotion, a sense of wonder”.

Bird on a Rock by Tiffany & Co launches globally on September 2 at select boutiques, with a campaign shot by Carlijn Jacobs and styled by Katie Burnett, starring house ambassador Zhang Ziyi. A three-part film series accompanies the launch, tracing the house’s fascination with birds, the moment that shaped Schlumberger’s original design, and the six decades that carried Bird on a Rock from a single brooch to the emblem it has become today.

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