PARIS — With rope pulls and sweatshirt collars, stripes and club badges, quick release-style clasps and carbon fiber, there’s a sporty vibe to the latest Chanel high jewelry collection unveiled Tuesday in Monaco.
And its “Haute Joaillerie Sport” moniker dispels any doubt on its theme.
But don’t make a connection with the looming 2024 Paris Olympics: as far as the French brand is concerned, there isn’t one.
“To create the ‘Sport’ high jewelry collection, I was inspired by Chanel’s sporty style, which is such an integral part of the house’s history: the elegance of the line and the freedom of movement,” stated Patrice Leguéreau, director of the Chanel jewelry creation studio.
Gabrielle Chanel had embraced body awareness and freedom of movement as early as 1921, using jersey for daytime leisurewear, creating a “Sport” atelier in her couture house and even developing dedicated cosmetics.
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Throughout out her career, this would continue to be a major throughline of the Chanel style vernacular.
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Plus, had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic, this sports-themed high jewelry collection would have likely been unveiled in 2023, insisted the French house’s president of watches and jewelry Frédéric Grangié.
“As far as we are concerned, the origins of the collection were set down years ago, as we were developing the triptych with Tweed, Numéro Cinq and Bijoux de Diamant’s 90th anniversary,” he said. “Everything brings us back to Gabrielle Chanel and Patrice [Leguéreau] looked on the fact that she created a sports division in 1921, a world first in a couture house.”
Showing in Monaco leaned further into this idea, given the principality’s position as “a 2.2 square kilometer concentrate of our shared history and of sports, with tennis, Formula 1 and beach [activities]” as Grangié put it.
Shortly after launching her sports line and the No.5 perfume, the couturier opened a counter at the Hôtel de Paris in 1926. The brand has since held numerous events, including its 2023 cruise collection.
Aesthetics-wise, the idea of a body in motion had Légereau hewing closer to the body, in keeping with the idea of sportswear and streamlined design.
Throughout the six chapters of the collection, he alighted on clean contours, tapering volumes, using motifs inspired by movement while doubling down on brand signifiers such as the number five, the 2.55 purse’s turnlock and, for the first time, the Chanel logo.
Turned into a design feature, the letters in the Chanel logo tumble across the surface of the Chanel Print cuff bracelet, which features a white gold lattice nodding to mesh fabrics.
This transformable piece comes with an additional set of cuff halves in black which called for another first, molded carbon fiber. This material been used for anything for sailboats and spacecrafts to fishing rods and prosthetics devices, but never in high jewelry.
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The cuff was reportedly snapped up in 20 minutes, by the first client who viewed it through a digital appointment.
“What increasingly makes a difference is the creative and original side of a collection,” Grangié said. “Because at this level — with the highest level of craftsmanship and stones as a given — having designs that are atypical, unique but truly the essence of the brand may be what triggers [a purchase] for clients.”
Amidst the ongoing luxury slowdown, Grangié said that while lowered traffic was as much a concern for Chanel as for its competitors, particularly in prominent markets like China and the U.S., the Rue Cambon house wasn’t fazed by such cycles.
“For a financial analyst, it’s about the quarter or the year. That isn’t the case for us,” he continued. “What characterizes and makes the beauty of high jewelry is that we are writing a story today that’s a story for the next 10, 20, 50 years.”
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That said, he named the growing client confidence in Chanel’s high jewelry as well as novel designs rooted in Chanel’s codes as success factors for the division. “It’s an activity that overperformed in 2023 and continues to perform very, very well in 2024,” he added.
Distilled in an 80-piece collection, Leguéreau’s sport inspiration turned into 18 necklaces, 16 earrings and no less than 33 rings as well as bracelets, brooches and a jewelry watch.
Modularity and adjustable pieces — over a quarter of the lineup — are par for the course, in a further nod to Gabrielle Chanel. “My jewelry can be transformed because my dresses change.…This already existed but I wanted to perfect it and build on it,” she told French journalist Albert Flament in a 1932 interview, following the “Bijoux de Diamants” launch.
Case in point, a white gold necklace featuring a snap hook shaped like the number five from the Sporty 5 Prestige chapter that comes as a set with a pair of asymmetrical earrings. Different pendants can be swapped around for at least three different combinations.
On another necklace in the set, the pendant featuring a 10.24-carat emerald set in an oval frame that can be folded into as a cocktail ring, also revealing a number five when seen from the side.
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“There are two complementary offers in this collection,” he said. With 23 unique pieces and more than 40 percent of the designs are priced higher than a million euros, part of the collection is meant to speak to clients seeking investment pieces, often with important stones.
“They know all the biggest houses and these houses are competing for these clients, so speaking to them requires the high level of craftsmanship, the most beautiful gemstones in the world and in our case, total creative freedom,” he continued.
What might catch their attention at Chanel is a set of five Kashmir sapphires that took over seven years to assemble, with the first stone found in 2017.
One 17.18-carat specimen is the centerpiece of the Graphic Line ring, which comes with a detachable jacket element and is priced at 9.5 million euros.
Another sits on the theme’s necklace, a masterpiece in the collection that required 1,700 hours of work. It is shaped like a fold-over collar outlined in rubies in a chevron pattern, and tapers into a closure inspired by the one on the 2.55 purse.
The other type of client Grangié described is one who will be charmed by the novelty of this sports-inspired line, with designs including a double-finger ring with scoreboard lettering spelling No.5 or a collar necklace finished with two yellow-gold rope pulls, a tubular chain design that’s one more innovation from the high jewelry workshop.
“Here we are almost on impulse buys because [the designs] are cool, fun and you know you’re the only one to wear such a piece — that’s something they really prize,” the executive said.
Beyond the individual appeal of these pieces, he was keen to highlight its place in high jewelry history with its sports theme but also in Chanel lore.
“Everything brings us back to 1932 and the first creative gesture of Chanel. Bijoux de Diamant was her collection and we are writing everything else,” he said. “It won’t appeal to all the clients I mentioned but it is certainly every attractive to see creation, novelty and tell yourself that you have tomorrow’s patrimony in front of you and that’s also our real difference.”
Hidden Treasures
Final addition in the extensive renovation of Chanel’s watch and jewelry flagship store on Place Vendôme is the space dedicated to the French brand’s patrimonial archive.
Some 800 pieces of jewelry and watchmaking have been collected here, spanning the early days of her brand to creations of Patrice Leguéreau, director of the fine jewelry creation studio, and Arnaud Chastaingt, director of the Chanel watchmaking creation studio.
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Among the highlights are 39 pieces of jewelry created by Gabrielle Chanel herself, including the single star-shaped brooch from the then-controversial Bijoux de Diamants launched in 1932.
Since 2012, the house selects pieces from each collection for its archive. Recent additions include the unique 55.55 necklace created to mark the centenary of the No.5 perfume, and a reproduction of Tweed Couture plastron from the 2020 high jewelry creation.
Examples of the Chanel Première, J12 and other timekeepers such as gem-set Mademoiselle Privé or a table clock featuring a lion on a rock crystal base.
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There are also documents, bejeweled cigarette cases and holders as well as the sword of American French conductor and harpsichordist William Christie, created for his entry at the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
While the patrimonial collection is not open to the public, its pieces are often on loan to museums for exhibitions — on Chanel or not.