By Gabriela Afanador
Friday 9, October 2026
On October 1, during Paris Fashion Week, Messika presented its new high jewelry collection, Terres de Contrastes, with a runway show at the Grand Palais. The show took place in the Galerie Courbe, where large arches shaped like sand dunes had been built into the space, recalling the ripples the wind leaves across the Kalahari desert. Under the glass and iron of the Grand Palais, those soft curved forms brought a piece of Southern Africa into one of the city’s great historic buildings, and they set the mood for a collection inspired entirely by the landscapes of Botswana. Messika is one of the few high jewelry houses that presents its collections as a real runway show, with models walking, music, and styling. That choice says a lot about how Valérie Messika sees diamonds, as something meant to move and to be worn, close to fashion and close to everyday life.
The Show
Photo via @messika on Instagram
For this collection, Valérie Messika worked with Carine Roitfeld, who styled the show around her own idea of the modern Parisian woman, elegant in an easy and natural way, with a quiet sensuality. The clothes were kept close to the body and simple enough to let the jewelry lead, and the pieces were made to sway and shift as the models walked, so each diamond caught the light with every step. Watching high jewelry this way is very different from seeing it behind glass. You can see how a necklace rests on the collarbone, how earrings move with the face, and how a piece that looks sculptural on a stand becomes softer once it is worn. Roitfeld has said that she loves the idea of wearing diamonds during the day with jeans and a simple T-shirt, without waiting for a special occasion, and that thought ran through the whole show.
The color of the collection followed the landscapes that inspired it. The show was organized into three worlds, each tied to a different part of Botswana, and the jewelry moved through them in order. First came the deep blues and greens of the Okavango Delta, then the warm earth tones and strong reds of the Kalahari desert, and finally the soft pinks and violets set against mineral white that recall the Makgadikgadi salt pans. Seeing the collection this way made it easy to follow, almost like a journey across the country told through stones.
The Collection
Botswana holds a special meaning for Messika, because it is where the house sources its diamonds, and Terres de Contrastes is a tribute to that land. The title means lands of contrast, and the idea shows up throughout the collection, in the meeting of water and desert, in the wildlife that lives between them, and in the way the house pairs strong natural shapes with very fine and fluid diamond work. This is also the second chapter of Messika’s story with Southern Africa. Last year, for the house’s twentieth anniversary, Valérie Messika presented a collection inspired by Namibia, which marked a real turn toward colored gemstones, and this season she continued on that path with an even richer range of color.
Photo via @messika on Instagram
The pieces inspired by the Okavango Delta carry the colors of water and vegetation, with deep green emeralds and long lines of pear and oval diamonds that seem to flow across the neck like a river. The wildlife of the delta also found its way into the jewelry, including a gold necklace shaped like the sharp teeth of a crocodile, set with a black opal that has a dark, shifting glow. The Kalahari pieces moved into warmer tones and took inspiration from the animals of the desert, especially the cheetah, whose spots and paw prints appear in onyx and diamonds around a center the color of sunbaked earth. Some pieces reach even further, like a choker inspired by tall columns of ancient basalt rock in Namibia. It is made in white gold and diamonds that look rigid and architectural at first and then move softly with the body once worn. There is also a necklace shaped like a snake coiling around the collarbone, with a deep red stone at its center that recalls the color of the sunset.
The Okavango Blue
Photo via @messika on Instagram
The Okavango Blue necklace sits at the heart of the collection, and it closed the show. At its center is a blue diamond of 20.46 carats, cut from a rough stone of 41.11 carats found at the Orapa mine in Botswana. It is the largest blue diamond ever found in the country and the eighth largest in the world, with a deep blue color and exceptional clarity. Around it, hundreds of white diamonds create a design meant to represent water, light, and earth, the three elements of the Okavango Delta. The necklace also celebrates the partnership between Messika and the government of Botswana, and the country’s Minister of Minerals and Energy was at the show to see the stone appear for the first time as a finished jewel. Because the most precious stone in the show comes directly from the place that inspired it, the collection has a real connection to the land it honors.
The Close
Photo via @messika on Instagram
I am truly in love with Messika’s jewelry. I know the brand has become very popular in the last few years, and you see its pieces everywhere, but there is a reason for that. Some of its designs are unique, and the house has a way of making diamonds feel light, modern, and wearable, both in the everyday pieces and in the high jewelry. Terres de Contrastes shows both sides. There are pieces like the Okavango Blue, meant to be admired for their rarity and their story, and there are pieces like the white gold choker that Carine Roitfeld would happily wear with jeans and a T-shirt.
I also really enjoy these shows, because they are such a different experience from a fashion show. Watching jewelry move on the body, under the lights, with the story of a place behind every color and every stone, makes you look at each piece more slowly and appreciate how much work and thought goes into it. With this collection, Messika continues to bring high jewelry closer to the way we live and dress, and I loved every moment of looking at it.