Discover the allure of TWEED DE CHANEL (Instagram), where precious stones transform into a delicate fabric, embodying the essence of iconic Scottish tweed. Patrice Leguéreau, the visionary Director of the CHANEL Fine Jewelry Creation Studio, takes inspiration from the country’s rolling hills and sweeping vistas, weaving a tale of opulence and sophistication.
Gabrielle Chanel’s love affair with the Duke of Westminster opened her eyes to the landscapes of Scotland in the 1920s. She borrowed the Duke’s tweed jackets, reinterpreting them in her collections. Tweed, a warm and woolly fabric woven in various patterns by the Scots, became a soft armour against the harsh Scottish climate, marking its place in CHANEL’s vocabulary.
In 2020, tweed made its debut in CHANEL jewellery, in a collection of 45 exceptional pieces meticulously crafted to replicate the fabric’s suppleness and intricacies. Now, in 2023, Patrice Leguéreau returns to the magic of tweed, presenting 63 new High Jewellery pieces that echo tweed set with precious stones.
The centerpiece of the collection is the Tweed Royal necklace. The yellow gold weave of the plastron necklace, intricately crafted and trimmed with a chain, is set with diamonds and 37 rubies. The lion’s head at its centre can be worn as a brooch or as a necklace on the plastron, while the pear-cut diamond that adorns it can be detached to be worn as a ring.
The “TWEED DE CHANEL” collection showcases five new tweed jewellery weaves, Camelia, Etoile, Lion, Ruban and Soleil, each showing different colours and adorned with icons dear to Gabrielle Chanel. White ribbons, pink camellias, comets on blue backgrounds, yellow suns, and lions with flashes of red create an enchanting impression of movement.
Crafted with intricate details, embroidered, fringed, and laced with openwork, each piece captures the essence of tweed’s richness and complexity. Plastrons, necklaces, sautoirs, bracelets, brooches, rings, and earrings recreate the charms of tweed, featuring intricate symbols delicately within clasps, or boldly on the pieces themselves.
The savoir-faire of CHANEL’s jewellers shines through in the TWEED DE CHANEL Collection. Meticulously re-imagined settings display the beauty of gemstones, with minuscule hinges, rings, and articulations in gold and platinum threads adding suppleness to each creation. The interweaving of gold, pearls, and precious stones recreates the textured thickness of tweed, while the back of each piece echoes the comfort and softness of the fabric.
Diamonds and precious stones of the highest quality, combined with the masterly skills of CHANEL’s Fine Jewelry Creation workshop, transcend fashion, offering creative freedom beyond bounds. This is an ode to tweed, with CHANEL, definitively declaring it precious.
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