When Marie-Laure Cérède left her role as Cartier’s creative director of jewellery and watches at the end of last year, speculation was rife that she might be moving to Chanel. Now, those rumours have been confirmed. Read all about it below.
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Chanel has announced that it has hired Marie-Laure Cérède to lead its jewellery creation studio. The softly spoken designer, who most recently served as creative director of jewellery and watches at Cartier, will step into the role from October this year, and will be in charge of all precious and high jewellery from the house. She will report to Frédéric Grangié, Chanel’s president of watches and fine jewellery.
Prior to her tenure at Cartier, Cérède worked at Harry Winston from 2002, where she headed up the artistic direction of jewellery and watchmaking for 14 years. She succeeds Chanel‘s renowned jewellery designer Patrice Leguéreau, who held the role for 15 years before he sadly passed away unexpectedly in 2024.
Leguéreau was widely recognised for his role in expanding the Chanel design universe into spectacular high jewellery collections, including its much lauded Tweed high jewellery collections, and its award-winning Chanel Sport collection, which was launched in time for the Paris 2024 Olympics. He preferred to draft his work on special black paper (of course) to highlight the beauty of his diamond designs.
Gabrielle Chanel herself only ever created one high jewellery collection during her lifetime. Three years into the Great Depression, the London Diamond Corporation commissioned her to create a special diamond jewellery collection to boost the industry. The result was her ground-breaking Bijoux de Diamants collection, which she unveiled at her private apartment at 29 rue de Faubourg de Saint-Honoré on 5th November 1932 (the designer’s lucky number was 5, hence the auspicious launch date).
“I wanted to cover women in constellations,” Chanel said at the time. Here’s hoping that Marie-Laure Cérède will continue in that grand tradition.
Like this? Read more about Chanel’s first and only high jewellery collection from 1932.
And: See The Other Bennet Sister star, Indira Varma, wearing Cartier designs for our latest digital cover
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