In late January during the week of Haute Couture in Paris, Chanel launched its new high jewelry collection titled “Coco Avant Chanel.” With a familiar title reminiscent of the beautiful 2009 biographical film written and directed by Anne Fontaine, the new collection plays out like a movie storyboard.
Storytelling is what Chanel does best. This time, the story took us back to 1913. Against a background of a pre-war, angst-ridden Europe, Gabrielle Chanel, then known to some as “Coco,” had just opened a second hat shop in the seaside resort town of Deauville. Aged 30 and unencumbered by either spousal or maternal responsibilities, Coco threw herself heart and soul into a creative adventure that would last her entire lifetime, one that would both lift her out of her youthful penury and revolutionize women’s fashion.
“This is a period of Gabrielle Chanel’s life that is not well know and has been rarely referenced in our jewelry lines,” explained the Maison Chanel. “At the time, Coco Chanel had a marked taste for lace and the simplicity of ribbon. Those motifs would later become a signature of her fashion and jewelry lines, and continue to be so today.”
Mademoiselle Chanel’s love affair with lace and ribbon was clearly deployed in her iconic 1932 jewelry collection, titled Les Bijous de Diamants, and returns today at the heart of Chanel’s high jewelry and watch collection.
Back in her hat shop, Coco Chanel gave free rein to her vision of a modern style for women, marked by its clean lines, a sparse color palette inspired by her days in the Aubazine convent, loosely-tied knots and a masculine edge, all expressing the fresh and cavalier attitude of the burgeoning designer against corsets, elaborate hats and bourgeois convention.
“This is the time when Gabrielle Chanel transformed the stylistic silhouette of women, shortened dresses, let out their waistlines, and cut her own hair very short,” said the Maison Chanel.
With the blunt cut of her sharpened scissors, Mademoiselle Chanel discarded the strict codes of the Belle Époque and ushered in 20th century modernity. “Coco Chanel did away with the conventional ways of wearing ornaments and went for the essential,” said the Maison Chanel who has sought to capture the spirit of the renegade Coco in the new pieces heavily inspired by the motifs of her youth. That radical spirit is encapsulated in the high jewelry watch lines presented just ahead of Baselworld. The good news for Chanel watch lovers, incidentally, is that the Maison plans to include a watch line in every future high jewelry collection.
“There have been watches in our past high jewelry collections but not systematically,” announced the Maison Chanel. “Whether as a secret watch or a straight-forward jeweled watch, watches will now be shown in all of our high jewelry lines.”
Chanel’s bejeweled watches, typically one-of-a-kind pieces, do not just feed the narrative of the Maison, they are a feat of craftsmanship. Case in point, last November, Chanel received its third award at the GPHG for its stunning garnet secret watch that featured a 52.61-carat carmine garnet on a quilted diamond setting, one of the more specular jewelry watches of the capsule collection known as Les Éternelles de Chanel collection.
The new high jewelry collection, comprised of eleven new jewelry sets each bearing the name of women who influenced the life of Gabrielle Chanel before 1920, included three watches that each evoke her youthful freshness with asymmetrical shapes, a largely monochromatic palette, and the sparse use of colored stones limited across the collection to morganite, pearls, spinels, moonstones and Padparadscha sapphires set on a bed of white diamonds.
The Gabrielle is a secret watch where a simplified and stylized lace motif appears to be printed with camellias, a favorite flower symbolizing Gabrielle’s youthful love affair with Boy Capel. The Gabrielle secret watch is produced in 18 carat white gold set with 3 round-cut diamonds for a total weight of 0.77 carat, and 629 brilliant-cut diamonds for a total weight of 13,95 carats.
Another watch in the collection is the Jeanne, named after Jeanne Dirys, a theater actress and silent movie star frequently seen sporting a Chanel hat. She was also the first wife of Paul Iribe, an influential illustrator and art deco jewelry designer who became Mademoiselle Chanel’s lover in the 1930s.
The Jeanne watch in 18-carat white gold is set with two marquise-cut diamonds for a total weight of 0.84 carat, two pear-cut diamonds for a total weight of 0.46 carat and 500 brilliant-cut diamonds for a total weight of 10.53 carats.
Finally, the Emilienne watch bears the name of Emilienne Alençon, a famous courtesan of the 1890s who met Gabrielle Chanel through Etienne Balsan, the cavalry officer and textile heir who would give Mademoiselle Chanel her first entry into society. Emilienne had also worn some of Chanel’s first hat creations.
The Emilienne fine jewelry watch is made of 18 carat white gold and set with a pear-cut diamond of 0.70 carat, a marquise-cut diamond of 0.50 carat, 11 round-cut diamonds for a total weight of 3.80 carats, eight fancy-cut diamonds for a total weight of 2.95 carats, 76 round-cut diamonds for a total weight of 0.18 carat and 215 brilliant-cut diamonds for a total weight of 9.31 carats.
Immortalizing the days of Coco before Chanel, the high jewelry watch collection at Chanel illustrates a quest for freedom, levity and timeless style that remain fundamentals in Chanel’s vocabulary.
Les Eternelles de Chanel enriched
In addition to the high jewelry collection, the Maison Chanel took the opportunity last January to preview three stunning and high versatile, multi-wear, one-of-a-kind pieces that augment Les Éternelles de Chanel collection.
First, a secret pendant watch in 18-carat white gold set with a pear-cut 5.32 carat fancy light yellow diamond, an Indonesian cultured pearl, 26 Japanese cultured pearls, a pear-cut crystal and 587 brilliant-cut diamonds for a total weight of 29.26 carats. “The secret of this watch is actually that it reveals itself as a watch when you turn it over, otherwise it can just be worn as a sautoir whose design was inspired by the Coromandel panels in Mademoiselle Chanel’s apartment,” explained the Maison Chanel.
The second is also secret necklace watch transformable into a bracelet made in 18-carat white gold set with a round-cut fancy brown yellow diamond of 10.02 carats, 75 Indonesian cultured pearls and 502 brilliant-cut diamonds for a total weight of 5.99 carats.
Finally, a third serpentine, wrap-around watch that is also a one-of-a-kind secret piece made in 18-carat white gold set with a pear-cut diamond of 5 carats, 7 fancy-cut diamonds for a total weight of 2.37 carats and 1361 brilliant-cut diamonds for a total weight of 30.47 carats.
The Maison Chanel has promised that additional timepieces will be unveiled at Baselworld as part of the Éternelles de Chanel collection.
