eauty lies quietly inside beige lacquered drawers, in well-guarded surroundings – Patrimony – at 18, Place Vendôme in Paris. These magnificent creations tell the story of Chanel and jewellery. Each piece, whether bought back by the house or recreated in its workshops, belongs to a chapter in a history that stretches back to 1932 and is still being written, year after year.

It began with a star. A platinum star, set with diamonds. A precious brooch with a singular story to tell: the only piece Chanel has been able to source from the Bijoux de Diamants collection that Gabrielle Chanel unveiled in 1932 and which is where the story begins.

Photograph of the original Comète brooch created in 1932 by Gabrielle Chanel for her “Bijoux de Diamants” high jewellery collection, preserved in the Chanel Watches and Fine Jewellery archive. ©CHANEL / Photo Didier Roy

The collection almost never saw the light of day. It was commissioned from the couturier by the London Diamond Corporation to boost sales of these precious stones, which had been badly hit by the Great Depression of 1929. Gabrielle Chanel was at the height of her fame but this was still a bold move and one that didn’t go down well with the jewellery establishment. Determined to defend their territory, the jewellery houses used every available means to prevent the collection from existing, including establishing a guild, but their efforts were in vain.

A sprinkling of stardust

Helped by her artist friends – Paul Iribe who sketched the jewellery, Jean Cocteau who wrote the manifesto and Robert Bresson who photographed the pieces – Gabrielle Chanel created her first “real” jewellery collection, its value at that time estimated at 93 million francs. It went on show in November 1932 at her home on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. Over 30,000 visitors marvelled at these innovative designs in the shape of comets, feathers, bows and cascades of diamonds, “worn” by wax mannequins.

Bijoux de Diamants high jewellery collection press kit, 1932. Comète necklace. Robert Bresson Photography, Bijoux de Diamants, Chanel, 1932. ©Adagp, Paris 2024. Courtesy of Chanel

“Some of my necklaces don’t close because that is how the neck is shaped. Some of my rings wrap around the finger,” Mademoiselle (as she was known) declared. The mounts were deliberately simple; the diamonds were the centre of attention. “I wanted to cover women with constellations,” she told L’Intransigeant newspaper. “Stars of every size. Look at this comet! See how its head sparkles on the shoulder and how its glittery tail falls across the chest in a shower of stars.” In press material for the Bijoux de Diamants collection, she declared she had chosen diamonds “because their density is such that they represent the greatest value in the smallest volume. I then called on my love of all that sparkles to reconcile elegance and fashion by means of parures.”

Detective work

When Chanel introduced jewellery to its repertoire in 1993, the House decided to assemble an archive relating to its watches and jewellery, and to curate a heritage collection of its most precious pieces. Its first task was to locate jewellery created by Gabrielle Chanel and in particular the 1932 Bijoux de Diamants, tracking down and piecing together information on where they might be. Because the collection was never intended to have a sequel, Gabrielle Chanel hadn’t kept the sketches, gouaches or order books. No-one even knows how many of the jewels were sold, while unsold pieces were dismantled and the stones returned to the London Diamond Corporation.

The heritage department worked patiently to find any customers from that period, studying more than 340 press clippings, photographs of the exhibition and news reels. This led to the discovery of a short Pathé-Gaumont film which, 92 years later, takes us inside the 1932 exhibition. Assisted by a genealogist, the department was able to identify the descendants of potential clients and contact 45 people. Of the 47 pieces that were described or photographed in 1932 newspapers, only two have resurfaced: a Feather brooch which is still privately owned and the Comet brooch, magnificently conserved in its dark blue velvet case, which Chanel was able to acquire in 2000 at an auction in Geneva. This precious star is now one of Chanel Patrimony’s prized possessions.

Chanel Patrimony, Paris. Mannequin, 1932, Roodhorst Collection. ©Gaumont-Pathé Archives. Photo: Manuel Braun. Courtesy of Chanel

While no-one can say if there are still pieces from the 1932 collection “in the wild”, the house hasn’t given up hope of locating these jewels, markers of Chanel’s entry into the high jewellery world. In order to keep a tangible trace of the original collection, between 1993 and 2015 the house crafted identical replicas of 36 designs.

In June 2022, 90 years after the original exhibition, the 1932 high jewellery collection was unveiled in Paris. Its 81 pieces were designed by Patrice Leguéreau, director of the Chanel Jewellery Creation Studio since 2009. The pièce de résistance was the Allure Céleste necklace in white gold and diamonds with, at its heart, an exceptional oval-cut sapphire weighing 55.55 carats. Elements can be detached from the necklace and worn separately as brooches or a bracelet. A replica was later made for Patrimony.

Lucky number 5

Everything Chanel makes follows certain rules, or rather respects codes established in the very early years, when Gabrielle Chanel had yet to become one of the wealthiest couturiers of her day. Pieces conserved by Patrimony are classed according to themes of significance to her: pearls, N°5, the camellias, lions, ears of wheat, masculine-feminine, lines, stars, couture, Byzantine inspiration, Coromandel and interior design.

The department is lined with vast cabinets. It is a privilege to see inside them. The 800 pieces they contain – 400 items of vintage and contemporary jewellery including 39 by Mademoiselle herself and more than 390 timepieces – are a flashback through the history of Chanel. Whereas the Bijoux de Diamants collection was extensively documented, that wasn’t always the case for later pieces. Gabrielle Chanel loved to mix styles and would happily wear high jewellery with costume jewellery. Alongside Fulco di Verdura, she designed superb cuff bracelets in Bakelite, glass and paste. At the launch of the Bijoux de Diamants collection, Gabrielle Chanel proclaimed she had “first designed only costume jewellery because I found it to be devoid of arrogance in an age of overly easy luxury.”

Chanel jewellery is a metaphor for episodes in the couturier’s life. Her taste for jewellery in the form of five-pointed stars, the moon or a Maltese cross, for example, originated in memories of a childhood of which she rarely spoke. These were motifs in the mosaic floors that led to the dormitories at the orphanage in Aubazine where she and her sisters were left by their father in 1895. She was twelve years old and would spend years in these austere surroundings, walking the same corridors morning and evening, thousands of times. She could have buried these memories; instead, she turned them into jewels.

Gabrielle Chanel was superstitious and set great store by the number five. Her beloved Boy Capel introduced her to the symbolic meaning of numbers and five – the alchemist’s “quint essence” or “fifth essence” – would become her lucky number. The chandelier in her apartment at 31, Rue Cambon is hung with pendants shaped like a number five. When choosing the fragrance sample that would become N°5, she told perfumer Ernest Beaux “I show my dress collections on the fifth of May, the fifth month of the year, so we will let this sample keep its number five. It will bring it luck.”* In 2021, one hundred years after the creation of the N°5 fragrance, Chanel unveiled Collection N°5 whose centrepiece, the 55.55 necklace, is set with a flawless diamond that was cut to exactly 55.55 carats, in the octagonal shape of the perfume stopper. It too is conserved by Patrimony.

Gabrielle Chanel was born on August 19, 1883, which made her a Leo. Among the felines decorating her apartment is a stunning bronze of a lion ready to pounce. Naturally, the house has dedicated a high jewellery collection to this king of beasts. Patrimony conserves the Constellation Lion necklace, adorned with a 32-carat yellow diamond.

Recreating the texture of tweed

Possibly the most surprising discoveries among these many treasures are the pieces set with gems and precious stones, created after 1932 and inspired by Indian or Byzantine designs. In Chanel, by Jean Leymarie**, we learn that “she visited the Treasury in Munich, Europe’s largest collection of jewels, and saw the glistening mosaics of Ravenna which depict Empress Theodora resplendent in her gold crown and cascades of pearls.” “Why,” she asked, “does everything I make become Byzantine?”*** These little-known pieces tell us that Gabrielle Chanel continued to offer her clients jewellery until 1971.

The Tweed Couture high jewellery necklace in platinum and pink gold, set with pink sapphires, spinels, diamonds and one 10.20-carat cushion-cut diamond, before preservation in the Chanel Watches and fine jewellery heritage collection. 2020. ©CHANEL

In 2020, thanks to the skill of its high jewellery workshops, Chanel succeeded in transforming tweed, Gabrielle Chanel’s signature fabric, into an astonishingly realistic collection of precious jewels. This carded woollen fabric takes its mottled shades from the heather and hills of its homeland, Scotland, whose rugged landscape the couturier discovered in the arms of her lover, Hugh Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster. The couple met in 1924 in Monte-Carlo and would enjoy an idyllic decade-long love affair.

Looking for a way to keep out the biting winds, Mademoiselle borrowed her aristocratic lover’s tweed jackets. She would be the first to introduce this twill fabric to haute couture, as early as 1924. In 2020, Patrice Leguéreau took inspiration from this iconic material for a 45-piece collection of high jewellery: Tweed de Chanel. A recreation of one of its most remarkable pieces, the Tweed Couture necklace, entered the Patrimony collection in January 2023. It comprises a multitude of rose gold and platinum strands whose irregular lines are set with pink sapphires, red spinels, diamonds and pearls. The centrepiece is a 10.2-carat D IF Type IIa diamond.

Signature de Perles high jewellery cuff in 18K white gold set with 1191 brilliant-cut diamonds totalling 12.4 carats and 308 Japanese cultured pearls, preserved in the Chanel Watches and Fine Jewellery heritage collection. 2016. ©CHANEL

In another tour de force, in 2023 the Chanel Jewellery Creation Studio introduced a further 63 tweed-inspired pieces. The jewellers excelled themselves in recreating the fabric’s warp and weft. Its suppleness, irregular weave and multiple patterns are rendered through intricate articulations of gold or platinum threads and deft openwork. Multiple layers of diamonds, pearls and sapphires give these jewels their distinctive texture. The centrepiece of the collection is a trompe l’oeil of woven yellow gold, finished with a chain: a nod to the trim on a Chanel tweed jacket which also gives the necklace its perfect fabric-like drape.

All this, together with more than 300 watches fitted with complication movements or decorated with engraved and enamelled motifs referencing Gabrielle Chanel’s favourite things, are revealed, drawer by drawer. Like every one of the pieces conserved here, they are witness to another time. That of a woman who wasn’t afraid to defy every rule, every convention; a pioneer who won her freedom and whose name resonates around the world and has done for over a hundred years.

Bibliography: * Ernest Beaux quoted in Le Figaro. ** Chanel, Jean Leymarie, Abrams, January 2011 *** Coco Chanel, Her Life, Her Secrets, Marcel Haedrich, Hale, 1972, p. 183