Latest news with #BijouxdeDiamants
Elle
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Elle
These Stunning Chanel Diamonds Are Devon Lee Carlson's Favorite
Nothing feels like a luxury fairytale quite like an evening filled with jewels in Kyoto. Earlier this week, Chanel celebrated the launch of its 'Reach for the Stars' high jewelry collection among fashion's most fabulous with a stunning excursion to Japan. For 'It' girl and style icon Devon Lee Carlson, the night was a whirlwind dream. Before heading out, Carlson playfully stacked her Coco Crush bracelets and rings, which perfectly complemented the edgy vibe of her sequined leather halter dress. The impressive collection consists of 109 pieces that deeply honor the historic legacy of Gabrielle Chanel. Signature motifs abound—lions, comets, and the debut of wings, all of which reference iconic moments throughout the designer's life. Chanel's star sign, Leo, is manifested through her lifelong collection of feline sculptures. Since then, the lion has become an integral symbol for the brand's high jewelry collections. Meanwhile, the comet represents a direct through-line to Chanel's first-ever 1932 Bijoux de Diamants line, a revolutionary idea in the diamond space amidst turmoil of that year. Finally, and perhaps most important, are the wings. This motif is represented in pieces such as the impressive 'Wings of Chanel' necklace, which features a boldly sculptural design and detachable pendant of star-shaped diamonds that doubles as a bracelet (also a favorite of Carlson's). The centerpiece—a cushion-cut Padparadscha sapphire, never before seen in a Chanel high jewelry collection. As the house founder once famously said, 'If you were born without wings, do nothing to prevent them from growing.'
BusinessToday
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- BusinessToday
Reach for the Stars with Chanel's Dazzling New Collection
Comets, lions and wings take centre stage in Reach for the Stars, Chanel's latest High Jewellery collection. Each motif is reinterpreted in delicate openwork gold and set with radiant gemstones, expressing movement, strength and aspiration. Every piece begins as a sketch in Chanel's Fine Jewellery Creation Studio. From there, expert artisans hand-select exceptional gemstones to meet the House's highest standards. At the atelier on Place Vendôme in Paris, these designs are brought to life with meticulous craftsmanship. The collection highlights Chanel's signature attention to detail. Gold is shaped into lace-like structures that drape elegantly around the body. Rare gemstones—including yellow and white diamonds, Padparadscha and blue sapphires, rubies, yellow beryls and orange garnets—add depth, colour and brilliance. The result is a refined expression of freedom and elegance. A key piece in the collection is the Wings of Chanel necklace, which introduces the wing motif to Chanel High Jewellery for the first time. Made in openwork gold and set with diamond details, the necklace wraps around the neck like a fine, lightweight structure. It also features a detachable diamond section that can be worn as a bracelet, offering added versatility. At its centre is a cushion-cut Padparadscha sapphire weighing 19.55 carats. Its colour shifts between pink and orange, giving the piece a warm, distinctive glow. Chanel's interest in celestial symbols goes back to 1932, when Gabrielle Chanel launched her Bijoux de Diamants collection. Her use of the star motif, which she once described as 'eternally modern,' continues in Reach for the Stars. The comet appears in new designs, such as the Blazing Star set with outlines in gold and onyx, and the Dazzling Star choker, which uses diamond pendants to create a sense of movement. The lion, Chanel's astrological sign and a symbol of strength, features prominently in the Strong as a Lion set, which combines a dazzling mane of stars with white and yellow diamonds. The Embrace Your Destiny necklace presents a sculpted lion's profile adorned with pear-shaped diamonds, exuding quiet power. For Patrice Leguéreau, Director of the Chanel Jewellery Creation Studio, the collection captures the fleeting beauty of a sunset—those final moments between day and night when the sky is awash with gold, mauve and pink. 'We wanted to create pieces of jewellery that are illuminated by the rays of the sunset and beyond,' he explains. 'Capturing that magical moment when high jewellery sparkles on the skin.' Related
South China Morning Post
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Style Edit: Chanel N°5 celebrates more than a century of elegance, from the 1921 perfume through 1932's Bijoux de Diamants high jewellery, to 2021's Collection N°5 inspired by the iconic fragrance
Just over a century ago, the world's most iconic fragrance was born. The year was 1921, and Chanel N°5 was 'a woman's perfume, with the scent of a woman', according to Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel . It was also the first perfume the legendary French couturier released. Five was her lucky number. Born in 1921, Chanel N°5 was designed to be 'a woman's perfume, with the scent of a woman', according to Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel. Photo: Handout Just over a decade later, Coco Chanel launched her first and only high jewellery collection. The year was 1932, and Bijoux de Diamants was born out of the designer's desire to, as she put it, 'cover women in constellations'. Chanel's choice of gemstone could be considered radical in the midst of the Great Depression. 'If I have chosen diamonds, it is because they represent the greatest value in the smallest volume,' she explained, highlighting the emphasis she placed on considerations of practicality as well as aesthetics. Advertisement A 1937 advertisement for Chanel N°5, starring Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel herself. Photo: Handout In 2021, Chanel debuted Collection N°5, the first high jewellery collection inspired by a perfume. The highlight of the collection is the 55.55 necklace, showcasing a 55.55-carat diamond, its custom octagonal cut mirroring that of a N°5 bottle stopper. With its magnificent 55.55-carat diamond, the 55.55 necklace is the highlight of Chanel's 2021 Collection N°5, the first high jewellery collection inspired by a perfume. Photo: Handout Today, the necklace is part of Chanel's legendary Patrimoine archive – a collection of historical and contemporary watches and fine jewellery pieces housed at 18 Place Vendôme in Paris Bijoux de Diamants, the first and only high jewellery collection Coco Chanel launched during her lifetime, on display at the Chanel watches and fine jewellery Patrimoine, at 18 Place Vendôme in Paris. Photo: Handout Traditions continue to be preserved as well in the perfume bottles themselves. Each N°5 bottle is sealed with a baudruche: a delicate natural film secured with two strands of black pearl cotton thread and a wax stamp bearing the Chanel double-C logo . Besides being beautiful, the seal protects the fragrance by ensuring the bottle is watertight.
New York Times
07-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
For These Watches, Blue Is Their Color
Chanel is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its J12 watch this year with what it has described as a major technical feat: the debut of a proprietary ceramic color that took five years to develop. A deep midnight blue that borders on black and shifts shades depending on the light, the J12 Bleu, as Chanel calls it, goes beyond the color restrictions of the past. Chanel, however, is not alone in this new territory. Panerai, Audemars Piguet and Zenith also have spent years creating new blue ceramic hues. The appeal of blue in watch design is hardly new — blue dials that were printed or even painted by hand have been popular for centuries. As the Pantone Color Institute noted when it named Classic Blue its color of the year in 2020, blue conveys 'calm, confidence and connection.' Yet the ability to create completely blue cases and bracelets is a relatively recent advance that began with colored PVD (physical vapor deposition) coatings on stainless steel. Later, colored technical ceramic was developed — but the first blue tone, used by the likes of Richard Mille, IWC, Omega and Hublot, was a bold cobalt, the only pigment then on the market. Arnaud Chastaingt, the director of the Chanel Watchmaking Creation Studio in Paris, said that while Chanel is known for its black and white color schemes, he was inspired by some dark blue evening gowns he had seen in an exhibition years ago, and by the blue of some jewelry boxes the house used in 1932 for a special Bijoux de Diamants collection. 'They proposed many colors of blue to me before I saw the one I loved and immediately knew it was the perfect blue for Chanel,' he said. 'It's a blue close to black, or a black close to blue, depending on how you see it.' While the quest to develop color variations may be driven by stylistic or aesthetic demands, working with ceramic presents operational challenges. Engineering ceramic is created out of inorganic, nonmetallic powders, most commonly zirconium oxide. When the powders are mixed with bonding agents to set the material, the colors change, making it hard to create a specific color. Experts say that maintaining the material's signature qualities such as its scratch resistance, hypoallergenic properties and lightweight feel while also perfecting a new color is tricky. Success requires extensive research and development, cutting-edge production methods and time-consuming rounds of trial and error. 'A Long Process' 'When I decided to create a special blue for Chanel, I worked with our ceramic team to understand the complexity,' Mr. Chastaingt said. 'You can't just add color to white ceramic or give color to black — you have to discover a blend of color and properties. I understood it was going to be a long process.' Chanel's original J12 was released in 2000 in black ceramic and then in 2003 in white. A subsequent plan to expand the brand's expertise in the material led to the eventual creation of an in-house ceramics division. Having developed its own injection molding process over the years. Chanel now makes its own case and bracelet components from proprietary ceramic powder formulas and compressed cylinders of zirconium oxide powder. The J12 Bleu collection — introduced at the Watches and Wonders Geneva fair this month — includes nine iterations. The J12 Bleu 38MM Sapphires watch, for example, created in a 100-piece limited edition, boasts a bezel set with 46 baguette-cut sapphires and dial markers of 12 baguette-cut sapphires. (155,000 euros; the U.S. dollar price is still undetermined). Chanel said it would take a year to produce the J12 X-Ray Bleu, which is machined from sapphire crystal and accented with matching blue sapphires (€1.2 million). Deep Sea Hues Panerai spent nearly three years perfecting the blue of its ceramic, a matte color that has no official name. But unlike Chanel, it does not have its own in-house ceramic department, so it had to turn to an outside supplier, which it declined to identify. The result was the 300-piece 40-millimeter Luminor Quaranta BiTempo Ceramica, which was quietly shown to retailers at Watches and Wonders Geneva this month and is expected to be available for sale in late summer or early fall. (€16,300; $16,000 in the United States) 'The first blue they showed me was too bright, too electric,' said Jean-Marc Pontroué, Panerai's former chief executive of 25 years who recently left the company. 'Panerai is really a very much black-on-black-on-black brand.' The brand began making watches for the Royal Italian Navy in 1916. Thanks to those marine origins, Mr. Pontroué 'wanted a blue that borders on black, a subtle evolution,' he said. 'It is a way to offer choice to our customers without being flashy.' The color development process involved many exchanges between Panerai and its zirconium oxide supplier. 'There is no Pantone color to pick because the making of the powder into the finished watch involves binders and chemicals that can change the initial color,' said Jérôme Cavadini, Panerai's chief operating officer. He identified a range of acceptable blues to provide some margin for error, but multiple prototypes were made, he said, before the supplier achieved a hue that Mr. Pontroué thought appropriate. 'You always have some surprises when you are making ceramic because of the process,' Mr. Cavadini said, noting that 'each attempt requires a lot of patience.' The Night Skies The night sky has been a fount of inspiration to brands branching out into blue. In early April, Audemars Piguet unveiled three deep-blue ceramic options in its Royal Oak line. These Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50 models take their color cue from the hue from 1972 that the designer Gerald Genta selected for the first Royal Oak watch dial — a shade itself inspired by the inky evening darkness of the Vallée de Joux, the forested Swiss location of the brand's workshop. Zenith also looked to the heavens for Zenith Blue, a ceramic color it created to fete its 160th anniversary this year. 'We wanted to look to the starry sky for a kind of blue that reflects the stars, the zenith, but also were inspired by our archives,' said Benoit de Clerck, the brand's chief executive. 'We found a lot of blue dials from our past and wanted to push that to the next level.' The project, overseen by Romain Marietta, the brand's chief product officer, involved working closely with the powder supplier, case manufacturer and bracelet maker. It took a long time to create and replicate the exact shade of bright blue they wanted, he said. 'Any variation could be a nightmare during assembly of, for instance, the bracelet and its many parts, and then for the case and bracelet to match.' He noted that inconsistencies could occur as late as during the finishing process: 'When the parts come out of the mold, they have to be microblasted to achieve the satin finish, and all of the angles are made by hand. So there can be color variation even at that stage.' The development process, Mr. Marietta said, took about a year, with additional time needed to perfect the finishings and polishings. The brand introduced the new color at Watches and Wonders Geneva, saying that three models would be rolled out this year, each as a 160-piece limited edition. They are: the 41-millimeter Pilot Big Date Flyback Edition 160 Years ($15,500), set to debut in April; the 42-millimeter Defy Skyline Chronograph Edition 160 Years ($23,800), to arrive in June; and the 41-millimeter Chronomaster Sport Edition 160 Years, scheduled in September. Was it cost-effective to pour so much research and development effort into just 480 watches? 'Our customers expect innovation from us,' Mr. de Clerck said, ' and we have to deliver.'
