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Apr 17, 2023

Chanel Explores Tweed in New High Jewelry Collection

PARIS — After Gabrielle Chanel discovered tweed during her love affair with

PARIS — After Gabrielle Chanel discovered tweed during her love affair with the Duke of Westminster, she turned this sturdy woven woolen material from Scotland into a byword for chic luxury.

Now Patrice Leguéreau, director of Chanel's fine jewelry creation studio, has made it the epitome of precious with the "Tweed de Chanel" high jewelry collection to be unveiled in London on Wednesday.

"It is a theme, a subject that is anchored in Chanel and its DNA since the origins of the house and that I was already thinking about when I arrived 14 years ago," he said. "I really want to regularly come back to it, because it's strong and can enter in jewelry as it has in the house's fashion codes."

This is his second interpretation of the house's signature material in gold and gemstones after a 45-piece first chapter launched in 2020 that included the "Tweed Couture" necklace, which was reproduced and added to the house's patrimony in January.

Working with the fabric's warp and weft motif also offered the possibility of having both creative and strikingly novel designs as well as a sense of classicism that would give the jewels a more timeless appeal, he added. "Imagine that pieces can be presented at different periods in time and can cohabit with other designs."

For this 2023 chapter, which counts 63 designs, Leguéreau is weaving the tweed with another quintet of house codes into his creations, each associated with a distinctive color: the white ribbon, the comet on a dark blue sky, the pink camellia, the golden sun and the lion, whose vitality and regal stature are alluded to with the color red.

The biggest challenge in a gold-and-gems interpretation of tweed was finding "the philosophy of the fabric," a material that can be supple and light but also sturdy and with a certain stature.

Central to this collection is the "Tweed Royal" necklace, a yellow-gold plastron necklace set with diamonds and 37 rubies, featuring an intricate weave design that helps it settle flush against the skin like the "armor of fabric" Gabrielle Chanel intended.

A detachable lion head motif can be worn as a brooch and the 10.17 pear-cut diamond that drips from the feline's mane can be detached and worn as a ring. Finishing the necklace is a chain, in a nod to the one finishing Chanel garments to help them fall impeccably but also to give the lion a "more rock ’n’ roll" vibe, he said.

Another draw was that tweed can come in any color and its weave can have a number of textural rhythms — tight or loose — without losing its identity, making it "an inexhaustible wellspring," for Leguéreau. The designs across the five themes where tweed is invoked go from tightly woven motifs to a nearly deconstructed interpretation.

Case in point, the "Tweed Etoilé" necklace where the hint of a tight weave at the side of the neck, complete with a 14.71-carat cushion cut yellow sapphires leads to five strands of white gold, yellow gold, lapis lazuli and onyx — tweed being woven or unwound is left to interpretation.

A throughline in the collection is Leguéreau's intention of teasing "life, poetry, lightness and femininity…from a material that is very geometric and structured by nature."

With the pink camellia idea, he wanted a lighter, more bubbly sensibility, giving it the shape of scatterings of pink stones figuring the petals of the camellia in the "Tweed Poudré" diamond, pink sapphire and rose gold necklace, or becoming a stately garden on the "Tweed Pétale" plastron, matching bracelet that can also be paired with earrings and a ring.

Elsewhere, a graphic ribbon looped through with diamonds and pearls in the "Tweed Ruban" designs often use pearls and different shapes of stones to evoke its namesake. "I played with tweed to work on variations that were original and novel," he said.

For each theme, a "Tweed Icône" cocktail ring brings a compact weave together with an important central stone. Hidden on the bridge is a filigree motif that nods to each theme, from a star to a stylized lion's head.

In London, expect an exploration of the recent history of tweed as a jewelry subject but also regarding creative approaches around the material, including an immersive experience that will take visitors to the highlands of Scotland and the river Tweed.

"It's a language that belongs to us, an absolute icon of the house of Chanel since the 1920s and one that has been stewarded by every creative director," said president for watches and jewelry Frédéric Grangié, echoing Leguéreau's belief that tweed is "unique" as a jewelry theme and "unique to Chanel."

The "Tweed de Chanel" collection forms a pivotal triptych in Chanel's high jewelry, alongside the No.5 and 1932 collections, paying homage to the brand's iconic perfume and first high jewelry designs.

The presentation Wednesday will also be the first time that the French luxury house is putting on an event of this magnitude in London, a destination chosen primarily for its close connection to the collection's theme, he continued.

In his opinion, there is no point to a "race to destinations" when it comes to putting high jewelry in front of the house's clientele; he has felt a reinforcing of their expectations of "creation, know-how and ultimate quality [to be] the principal draw for them."

Instead, the focus will continue to be offering an experience on par with the 18 Place Vendôme flagship in Paris, for example in Tokyo, with the October reopening of the Ginza jewelry and watches store.

"To make this kind of client travel, what is important is offering a comprehensive experience, one that can be simple — perhaps as simple as being barefoot in the grass outside La Pausa," Gabrielle Chanel's former country house currently being restored by the company, said Grangié.

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