At the origin of J12 was the desire for an entirely black watch. To fulfill this creative quest, ceramic established itself as the most revolutionary material: inalterable, with a deep and intense black. Unveiled in 2000 by CHANEL Watches, the J12 first surprised and then became the emblem of a new generation of unisex sports watches, visually bold and highly resistant.
In 2003, CHANEL Watches presented the black J12 with its immaculate double, following to the letter the words of Mademoiselle: "Black has everything. White too. They have an absolute beauty. It's the perfect harmony." With the white J12, CHANEL Watches reinvented the codes of sports watches by placing the high technical standards of ceramics at the service of stylistic audacity.
Following these two revolutions in black and white, the CHANEL Watchmaking Creation Studio opens a new territory of expression for J12 with blue. Blue has existed in Gabrielle Chanel's chromatic vocabulary since 1914 appearing in her first jersey creations debuted in Deauville. She would draw upon it regularly, for daywear in wool or tweed, as well as for evening dresses. Blue has punctuated her collections in all its shades, but Gabrielle Chanel particularly favoured its darker palette. In watchmaking, this hue brings a deep, almost complex sophistication to J12.
"From the start, the vibrations of blue resonate in fashion and beauty" as Arnaud Chastaingt, Director of the CHANEL Watch Creation Studio explains. "I dreamt of giving black a colour, of lightening it with blue; a strictly elegant blue, a blue that was not quite black or a black that was not quite blue. It took 5 years of research to develop a ceramic in a colour unlike any other and the final choice of this particular shade was led simply by emotion. Thanks to the unique ceramic savoir-faire acquired by the House of CHANEL in a quarter of a century, we accomplished this."
The technical mastery of CHANEL's Watch Manufacture has transformed this avantgarde ceramic into a precious material, magnified by a colour as original as it is absolute.
Unveiled as a limited series in 2025, the J12 BLUE now enters the permanent watch collections of the House with two matte ceramic models: 38 and 33 MM.
A unique blue. An exclusive blue. A CHANEL blue.
