Stern and Diane Kruger give butterflies an edge.

For jewellery, I like the idea of nature hot and strong – especially during the burning summer months.

Brazil is always hot – in colour and in spirit. So H Stern, the international jewellery house with roots in Rio, has made its new collection glow.

Butterflies and birds, moulded from rose gold and set with cognac-coloured diamonds, create a fierce vision of natural creatures.

 

Link them to the pale princess beauty of film star Diane Kruger and you have an intriguing meld of raw and refined.

I saw the jewels first – not on the actress nor in the midsummer fields where she was photographed – but close up on display.

The effect of the pink-tinged pavé-set diamonds on a rose-gold framework has inspired the jeweller to define the collection as a “punk rock” look.

I am not convinced that these jewels “rock”. That makes the effect sound urban and tough, while I would see it more as nature showing its true colours. It is not quite “red in tooth and claw”. But the butterflies especially – for example on a deep cuff – are geometrically curved rather than suggesting a delicate flutter.

Making the wings graphic, for birds or butterflies, gives a harder, modern edge to a familar jewellery design. Add other stones such as morganite and smoky quartz, and there is a fiery quality to this vision of nature.

The most dramatic piece is a smoky quartz necklace decorated with birds, butterflies and a bee at the nape of the neck. This bold design gives a sense of nature’s abundance. But there is also a chillier feel to birds winging away at the onset of winter – interpreted by their wings being reduced to abstract geometric objects.

Where does Diane Kruger fit into this vision? In her role as filmstar spy in Quentin Tarantino’sInglourious Basterds, the actress – formerly a model and ballet dancer – showed her tougher side. And even her version of Marie Antoinette in the French film Les Adieux à la Reine was not the usual Versailles frippery.

So jewels with a tough, modern edge seem just the thing when designer and managing director Roberto Stern decided to give a hard edge to his rocks.