In the wake of big anniversary celebrations at heritage houses like Boucheron, De Beers, and Cartier, this year marks yet more milestones in the world of high jewellery, with Buccellati fêting its 100th birthday and Piaget its 145th.

Even so, all eyes were on the newcomer to the Place Vendome: Gucci stepped into the arena with (what else?) a spirited mash-up of styles and stones. Elsewhere, Louis Vuitton staged a comeback of sorts, and a scattering of Indies held small but strong showings. The major takeaways: desert-inspired colors, a lashing of humble minerals not ordinarily associated with high jewellery, and a renaissance for the pear cut. Here, some of the season’s major statements.

Gucci

The house’s first-ever high jewellery collection is called Hortus Deliciarum—a Garden of Delights—after a 12th-century illuminated manuscript. Still, the 200-piece showing was above all an of-this-moment salute to magpie minimalism, neatly reprising Alessandro Michele’s signatures in stones assembled in a riot of flora, fauna, and classic symbols of love like Cupid’s arrow.

Cartier

Cartier staged a mash-up of its own, pairing diamonds and emeralds with rutilated quartz, sapphires, opals, pink diamonds, and morganite. Here: the Magnitude necklace with 107-plus carats of Mozambique ruby beads mixed with cabochon rubies, watercolor tourmalines, turquoise amazonite, onyx, and diamonds.

Boucheron

The first house to set up on the Place Vendome used its perch in its newly revamped flagship to offer a collection called Paris As Seen From #26. Several pieces saluted the shape of the Place itself; including the Duo ring with two emerald-cut beryl’s weighing over 31 carats each, diamond pave, and black lacquer.

Ana Khouri

Reconnecting with nature and tapping into its mystery was an oft-cited inspiration on the runway. A sculptor by training, the indie designer Ana Khouri weighed in on the “interconnectedness of things” with these responsibly sourced, fair-trade diamond and pear-cut emerald creeper earrings: “My work is a way for me to communicate harmony, knowing my place in the world and being present to that,” she said.

De Beers

A collection called Portraits of Nature was the largest De Beers has shown to date, and it centered on a play of color and texture. As its name suggests, the Knysna Chameleon necklace is a shade-shifter: The double row of tonal rough diamonds around the white baguette diamond necklace can be removed, as can the tassel with a five-carat pear-cut diamond drop.

Dauphin

Charlotte Dauphin de la Rochefoucauld is celebrating her house’s fifth anniversary by revisiting the classics, venturing into emeralds, and keeping it personal. “I was thinking about pieces that have many lives, which you pass from one generation to the next,” she told Vogue about the collection she presented in her family’s hôtel particulier. Though generally at home with rigorous lines, the designer paired those with diamond parabolas on the earrings shown exclusively here.