Right around the time Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was visiting Hollywood in the early 1930s — at the invitation of producer Samuel Goldwyn, to design costumes for his films — the famed French couturier was creating another game-changer within her atelier: a high-jewelry collection.
The professional relationship with Goldwyn didn’t last, though 1931’s Tonight or Never, starring Gloria Swanson, is a terrific look at Chanel’s designs on film. But her idea to produce haute joaillerie (one-of-a-kind jewels that represent the pinnacle of stones and handcraft) has endured and transformed the jewelry industry and red carpets alike.
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In 1932, Chanel debuted her first high-jewelry collection with the 50-piece “Bijoux de Diamants,” which focused on comets and stars.
Ninety years later, the house is honoring that moment with its latest high-jewelry offering. Christened “1932,” the 77 designs pay tribute to Chanel’s original vision. “Gabrielle Chanel’s spirit and style are the inspiration,” Patrice Leguéreau, director of Chanel’s Fine Jewelry Creative Studio, tells THR exclusively, “and from there I work with ideas of lightness, femininity, transformability and suppleness of movement.” Such a thought is among the reasons Leguéreau prefers to design using a mannequin’s torso, so he can ensure a necklace lies perfectly on a client’s neck.
Chanel debuted the collection in Paris in July, and it is now set to arrive in L.A. for a splashy party and dinner at a private location on Oct. 20. Marion Cotillard, Whitney Peak and Jurnee Smollett are among the stars expected at the showing, which will include recently completed never-before-seen pieces.
What was behind the decision to bring the collection to L.A.? “It’s a very important city for jewelry and art as well, a very dynamic place,” Leguéreau says. “There’s also the link between Gabrielle Chanel and Los Angeles, when she arrived to create fashion for the movies, but this is also where we have quite a few customers. All of these things made this a natural decision.”
In addition to the dinner, introducing clients to the collection is essential during the brief time the jewels will be in L.A.
Among the highlights is the Allure Céleste necklace, which showcases a deep blue oval-cut sapphire totaling 55.55 carats on a design that’s fully transformable. The three “halos” adorning the necklace can be detached and worn as brooches, while a row of diamonds also can be detached and worn as a bracelet, which then creates a shortened necklace. “To me this is the necklace that best expresses the spirit of the collection and the spirit of Gabrielle Chanel,” Leguéreau notes. “It’s important to be able to wear jewels at different moments of the day, as you feel like it, and that’s why I love creating transformable pieces. It’s the choice to wear the jewelry as you want.”
The search for perfect stones is integral to high-jewelry design, while Leguéreau also enjoys the bit of kismet that occurs when certain gemstones are presented to him. That 55.55-carat sapphire, for example, naturally evokes thoughts of Chanel No. 5, while two other designs feature a white diamond and yellow diamond, weighing 19.32 carats each. “They also are of a very high quality and a beautiful cut, so I thought, they just have to be part of this collection,” Leguéreau says, adding with a smile, “they made it very easy for me.”
And with the 100th anniversary of Chanel’s decision to create high jewelry on the horizon, Leguéreau says ideas for those designs are already occupying space in the back of his mind. “In 10 years I will probably go in many directions [to celebrate the 100th anniversary], so that’s another reason I wanted this anniversary to be quite focused on Chanel’s love of these elements and the poetic aspect of the stars,” he says. Indeed, while Leguéreau strives for purity and simplicity in his designs, it’s always with an eye on the attitude of the house’s founder, who once said of her original high-jewelry collection: “I wanted to cover women in constellations.”
A version of this story first appeared in the Oct. 19 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
