Celebrities to gather in Gstaad for private viewing of Depy Chandris’s jewelry collection

Depy Chandris, with a butterfly at her throat, accompanied by Andy Warhol on a glittering night out in New York in the early 1980s.

HELBI

Depy Chandris’s butterflies flutter like snowflakes over the Swiss winter resort of Gstaad, where, after the departure of the Christmas visitors, the permanent “settlers” are enjoying their social life. These include former Iranian Empress Farah Diba; her children and other family members; Sir Jocelyn Stevens and Lady Duffield; Count Alexandre de Lesseps (the grandson of Ferdinand, who built the Suez Canal); the Radziwill families (Evgenia Karra and her husband John Radziwill); the Millers (Marie-Chantal Miller is the wife of Pavlos and the daughter-in-law of Constantine, former king of Greece); the Cramers; the Crespis; the Dreyfuses; the brother of Mohammed Al-Fayed, owner of Harrods; Mick Flick of Mercedes Benz; Guenther Sachs von Opel; fashion designer Jil Sander and Prince and Princess Vittorio Emmanuele of Savoy. Among the Greeks with chalets in Gstaad are the collectors Giorgos Embirikos and Alexandros Goulandris, Mr Karolos Fix, Manouella Vardinoyianni, Dimitris Angelopoulos, Petros Andreadis and the Latsis family — Erietta Latsi and her daughters Marianna and Margarita and their husbands, and Spyros Latsis with his family. Once upon a time, longstanding guests were Liz Taylor and the late Rudolf Nureyev. Other regulars are the charming Princess Michael of Kent and the directors of Sotheby’s and Christie’s. It is to this discerning crowd that Depy Chandris is to present her new collection “Beauty and the Best,” a “collection of super elegant, highly original jewels and ornaments which combine the opulence of the Baroque era with the minimalist chic of our own,” according to the invitation — itself a collector’s item, with a design incorporating imitation amethyst and topaz and stars. The presentation, being set up by Chandris herself, will take place on Sunday, February 22, at the Salon Eggli in the Grand Hotel Park, which, under the directorship of Gianni Biggi, has become the meeting place for VIPs in Gstaad, the resort that has become the focus of Central European marketing, where French, British and Germans socialize in its chalets and the salons of the great hotels, to see and be seen. These are all faithful customers of Depy Chandris, whose shipowning family background, combined with her cosmopolitan air, imaginative eccentricity and solid business sense in the jewelry business have made her a “must” in Gstaad social circles. Chandris exhibited the same collection in Athens recently at the Hotel Grande Bretagne and many of its pieces are already gracing necklines and lapels on gowns and suits. Depy began exhibiting her pieces in the 1980s in Athens, Paris, London and New York with the support of gallery owner Alexander Iolas, and attended parties with Andy Warhol. This year, she has chosen Gstaad, with the cooperation of UBS, for the invitation-only showing of her new creations, before Paris, London and New York.