When Frédéric Boucheron was preparing for a trip in 1888, he gave his wife Gabrielle a necklace with a snake motif. As a protective symbol, the precious reptile would help Gabrielle wait peacefully for his return. The snake had not yet become a recurring theme of the Maison at the time. Widely acknowledged as an avant-garde jeweler, Frédéric Boucheron had many other strings to his bow. It was the novel design of The Question Mark necklace that drew the eye, but it was the piece’s flexibility – its lack of clasp was unheard of in jewelry at the time – that really helped it stand out.
Eight decades later, in 1968, the snake would emerge at the Maison once again. A revolutionary wind was upending society and shifting minds, as well as having an impact on jewelry and fashion. An unembarrassed form of jewelry swept away discreet bourgeois traditions, with the seventies seeing women dress in ostentatiously voluminous jewels. At Boucheron, it all began with one design, a drop motif that single-handedly encapsulated the savoir-faire that would become one of the Maison’s iconic symbols: Serpent Bohème. The workshops sculpted and chiseled the gold to reproduce each scale with extraordinary finesse, while a set drop, surrounded by fine gold pearls, symbolized the snake’s head.
Serpent Bohème is one of the Maison’s major hallmarks, available in diamonds or with sublime colored gemstones. In 2025, the Maison’s Artistic Director Claire Choisne – renowned for the boundless audacity of her Carte Blanche creations that set Place Vendôme ablaze once a year – is reviving an archival model from 1974: a Serpent Bohème sautoir that multiplies the iconic drop to form a floral motif, adorned with cabochon-cut onyx and coral. With its voluminous and whimsical design, this model is a 70s icon that has given birth to today’s collection, Serpent Bohème Vintage.
Diamonds reign supreme in this set of 15 new pieces with bold aesthetics and XXL dimensions, which can be transformed as desired. The chiseled gold scales are a particular highlight. The links of the 1974 piece have been redesigned and streamlined, while colored gemstones have given way to brilliant-cut diamonds set within pear-shaped motifs, with lines that are tauter and more dynamic than the cabochons of the initial necklace. The dome shaped design of the voluminous jewels allows ample light to circulate beneath the settings and give the diamonds greater brilliance.
Constantly reinvented yet unchanged, Serpent Bohème has stood the test of time, establishing itself today as a timeless icon. If 2025 is the Year of the Snake, Boucheron is calling it the year of the Serpent Bohème vintage, marking a turning point with a radically different aesthetic.
Images ©Boucheron
