Jewels play a scintillating role in the legend of Gabrielle Chanel, couturier and architect of modern femininity. Jewels charted the course of her life and loves, symbolising her quest for independence and her remarkable rags to riches self-reinvention: from the faux pearls that parodied the fabulously valuable natural pearls worn by the Belle Epoque socialites, relics of a world from which she was excluded, to the extravagant gems and jewels she was given by her lovers, the Duke of Westminster and Russian Grand Duke Dmitri, that she remodelled to her own taste.
All represented status, security, belonging and everlasting, undimming beauty. And deeply superstitious Chanel understood that jewels and gems embodied the talismanic powers that were so important to her. While enmeshed in her personal life story, they also became an expression of her persona and her intensely individual style, showcasing her love of Baroque and Byzantine richness, the perfect foil to the tailored rigour and casual simplicity of her clothes.
“Why does everything I do turn out Byzantine?” Chanel wondered. She would spend evenings alone in her apartment, surrounded by bowls, boxes and drawers full of gemstones, pâte de verre fragments, and jewel boxes overflowing with her treasures.
Then with a few simple tools, she would set about remodelling them, creating the ornaments she wanted to wear herself, in a style of sumptuous gold and rich colour that broke through the white silence of 1920s and 30s minimal monochrome modernism.
So important were jewels to her that they were woven into fashion as defining signatures: pearl and gilt buttons, golden chains sewn into the hems of jackets or woven through leather handbag straps, charms and symbols, and costume jewellery that was, and is still, integral to inimitable Chanel style.
Now the captivating, emotionally-charged story of Chanel and her jewels is set out in the Chanel archive’s jewellery and watches collection, housed in a new space, secreted beneath the Chanel jewellery boutique at 18 Place Vendôme, Paris.
The collection ranges from Mademoiselle’s own jewels and creations, through early couture jewellery to today’s high and fine jewellery and watches. In all there are 800 treasures and still counting, as this is very much a living Patrimoine, with carefully selected specimens from each new collection added to the archive each season.
I was invited into this inner sanctum of heritage, the cool, contemporary underground room, black walls lined with shiny beige lacquer drawers, that I itched to open and riffe through, which, of course, wasn’t allowed; instead I was given a tour by the carefully gloved and knowledgeable archivist.
The collection pivots around the single diamond jewel – the Comet brooch – from Chanel’s famous, barrier-breaking 1932 Bijoux de Diamants cosmic-themed collection, her first and only high jewellery collection. The project was instigated and supported by the Diamond Corporation Limited, London, in an effort to revive the diamond jewellery market suffering in the wake of the 1929 Wall Street Crash and subsequent depression.
In a characteristically provocative move, against the grain of fashionable costume or so-called ‘dressmaker’s’ jewellery – which Chanel herself had popularised – she joined forces with Paul Iribe, decorative artist and love of her life, to create the attention-grabbing diamond collection.
Strikingly and enduringly modern, the jewels were designed as stylised celestial bodies, stars, comets, milky way, interspersed with couture motifs, such as a ribbon bow choker, feather brooch and a fringed headband and bracelet.
The collection was presented in Chanel’s Faubourg Saint Honoré apartment, displayed on lifelike wax mannequins, with immaculate hair and make-up and dressed in strapless gowns, some with stoles or berets. It was a milestone moment in jewellery and fashion history.
So much so that when the decision was taken to set up the jewellery and watches Patrimoine in 1993, the year Chanel launched its fine jewellery venture, the first mission was to seek out any existing models from the 1932 collection that laid the foundations for and gave legitimacy to Chanel’s foray into precious jewellery.
This involved dogged detective work, trawling through the 340 press articles, as well as photographs of the display, the original invitation – all now in the archive – and a contemporary Pathé newsreel. Rediscovered when the Pathé-Gaumont archives were digitised, it offered up a tour of the 1932 exhibition. The idea was to track down any clients amongst the guests, and with the help of a genealogist, to identify and locate them: 45 people were contacted.
It was a long-shot, especially as it was known that any unsold jewels were broken up at the time and the diamonds returned to the company in London. In the event, of the 47 jewels photographed or mentioned in the press, only two have resurfaced: the Plume brooch, now in a private collection, and the Comète brooch, which, as if heaven-sent, fell into Chanel’s hands, acquired by the maison when it miraculously appeared at auction in Geneva in 2000.
The 1932 collection has inspired a host of modern re-editions, from 1993 – from the inaugural Chanel fine jewellery collection, right up to two anniversary collections, in 2012 and 2022, created by Patrice Leguéreau, director of Chanel’s Jewellery Creation Studio, since 2009. Choice jewels from each re-interpretation are housed in the archive.
We look at the early jewels designed or created by Gabrielle Chanel herself. There are 41 examples at present in the archive: these include a small, mid-1930s clip, set with emeralds and a vibrant pink sapphire, a brooch, also mid-30s, designed as a swirl of pastel coloured gems, and a bombé cuff, darkly dramatic, set with sapphires and rubies.
All are astonishingly modern and show Chanel’s eclectic taste in jewels, and her love of colour, surprising considering her preference for black, white and beige.
And her love of rich yellow gold, seen in a lusciously thick and heavy 18-carat gold collar, designed as a spontaneous twist of metal enveloping honey-coloured citrines. This, explains the archivist, can be dated precisely as it was illustrated in US Voguein 1935, along with a surrealist watercolour by Giorgio de Chirico.
In a different mood altogether, a series of jewels set with rubies, sapphires and diamonds, suggests the tricolore, and very likely a patriotic message while a necklace, set with pale emeralds, sapphires and rubies, remodelled in the 1930s from a 19th-century sautoir, belonged to Chanel herself.
Provenance is key, enriching the narrative, and a large, bold, pyramid-shaped gold brooch studded with coloured gems, hunted down and traced back through the family, is known to have belonged to Lady Abdy, the Russian-born socialite, model and actress who became the toast of Paris in the 1920s, and a friend of Coco Chanel.
However, the highlight of these early, original Chanel jewels is surely the Maltese cross bangle, mid-1930s, recently acquired by Chanel at auction. Perhaps more than any other jewel, the ivory-white and bejewelled Maltese cross bangle is intimately associated with Gabrielle Chanel, as she wore a pair of them, one on each wrist, day and night, as seen in iconic photographs.
They were designed in the 1930s by the Duke of Verdura, collaboratively with Chanel, the inset gold Maltese crosses set with coloured gems, perhaps taken from Chanel’s own jewels. Very few of these were made, and the bangle now in the Chanel archive belonged to Helen Hayes MacArthur, First Lady of American theatre (1900-1993) and had been bought for her by her husband, directly from Chanel in the 1930s.
Made of silver, overlaid with matte ivory enamel, the Maltese cross is studded with emerald cabochons, a central amethyst, aquamarines, sapphires, diamonds and rubies, the gems set as if at random, a defining signature of the Verdura-Chanel collaboration.
It tells of their shared love of Byzantine and Baroque historical treasures, in particular the Byzantine mosaics at the Church of San Vitale, Ravenna, and it tells too how together, Verdura and Chanel instigated a new, sumptuously rich style of jewellery to challenge the supremacy of streamlined Art Deco.
This richness, flavoured by medievalism, Byzantine, and Merovingian ornaments, runs through the archive’s early costume jewellery made between the 1950s and ‘70s by Robert Goossens (1927-2016) working closely with Chanel. The son of a metalsmith, he set up his atelier in Paris, in 1954, and became Chanel’s favoured jeweller and collaborator.
Like Verdura, he shared Chanel’s passion for history and together they created a distinctive style, mixing faux and real stones and minerals, particularly rock crystal, in golden gilt jewels with an artisanal quality that came from Goossens’ famed hand-craftsmanship. Highlights here include rough-hewn rock crystal cross, tied together with gilt strands, a camellia brooch and a bird brooch in Visigoth style.
While the search for early Chanel jewels goes on, the collection is expanded each season by the addition of exceptional creations from the maison’s high jewellery collections; exceptional in terms of both design and craftsmanship. The decision was taken in 2012, the year that the spectacular Constellation du Lion necklace, with its 32-carat yellow diamond, was chosen for the archive.
Starting with the first collection in 1993, the archive traces the evolution of contemporary Chanel jewellery, both high jewellery and fine jewellery, encapsulating signature themes and inspirations drawn from Gabrielle’s life, loves and preoccupations: lions, ears of wheat, pearls, her precious coromandel screen, the Russian influence on Parisian society, androgyny, Venice, black and white, Chanel’s beloved ‘absolutes’.
There are diamond camellias as light as lace, or transformed into a cravate, floating feathers, a luscious long pearl sautoir from 2014, marine-themed jewels from the 2017 Flying Cloud collection, referencing the Duke of Westminster’s luxurious yacht, and the romantic cruises Chanel enjoyed during her ten-year love affair, as well as the intricate bib-necklace of gem-embroidered rose gold and platinum threads from the most recent Tweed collection.
Highlighting this section is the showpiece necklace of the 2021 No 5 collection, celebrating the launch of the famous fragrance. The necklace is centred on a breathtakingly rare diamond, of 55.55 carats, D Flawless and type 11A, which was custom cut to just the right size in the shape of the No 5 bottle stopper, itself an echo of the Place Vendôme.
One example of every design from Chanel’s fine jewellery collections finds its way into the lacquer drawers, and I spot a familiar white ceramic camellia ring and exuberant gilt shells from the 1996 Gabrielle à la Plage collection.
I’ve lingered too long over the jewels, so we cross the room to look briefly at watches, which start with the original 1987 Première, its dial the shape of the No 5 bottle stopper, its strap of gold chain woven through with black leather, along with a photograph of Inès de la Fressange wearing it, followed by every Première model since its creation.
The massive success story of the J12 with its ceramic links is played out here, as is the Boyfriend watch, and then the hit of horological glamour comes with high jewellery watches, the métiers d’art dials, and the stunningly original Mademoiselle Privé Bouton series, fusing couture, timepieces and Chanel’s style signatures. I drool over the cuff embroidered with seed pearls and gold thread by Lesage.
The tour ends with what is a startling revelation for me: a small group of truly spectacular one-of-a-kind objects, bespoke commissions or simply flights of fancy showcasing the extraordinary savoir faire of the maison’s jewellery ateliers: a clock on a rock crystal base, a monumental lion sculpted in 18-carat gold, paying homage to the lion of Chanel’s star sign Leo, and, a fitting finale, the Academician’s sword commissioned by American-French conductor and harpsichordist, William Christie, created in 2010, with a handle of appropriately baroque composition, crafted in bronze decorated in stingray and enamel.
Showing that Chanel’s Patrimoine of jewellery and watches, now installed in its elegant new home, is truly a living heritage, honouring Gabrielle Chanel, every aspect of her creativity and audacity, her spirit of freedom and modernity, and pointing the way forward through the past.
Like this? Piaget gives its Polo Date watch a stunning rainbow upgrade
