There is a moment at day’s end when the light softens, the sky blushing pink and mauve before yielding to night. This fleeting golden hour, sensual, cinematic, and quietly powerful, forms the emotional core of CHANEL’s (Instagram) latest High Jewelry collection, Reach for the Stars.
It was this same sense of unconditional freedom that propelled Gabrielle Chanel toward Hollywood, where she reshaped glamour for a new era. Rejecting excess and convention, she envisioned a woman who moved with confidence and clarity. Structured silhouettes, winged details, photogenic fabrics, and fluid lines replaced ostentation with intention. Glamour, for Chanel, was never about spectacle alone, it was about attitude, independence, and light.
Inspired by the fleeting moment between day and night, Patrice Leguéreau and the CHANEL Fine Jewelry Creation Studio imagined jewels that glow as if lit by sunset itself, where opulence meets lightness, and structure moves with the body. Monochrome diamonds and vivid coloured stones pay tribute to Gabrielle Chanel’s enduring symbols, the comet, wings, and the lion, expressed through cascading necklaces, sculptural chokers, daring rings, and commanding tiaras inspired in part of the grandeur of American jewelry. Together, they form a dress code that invites freedom, audacity, and a singular command: dare to shine, and rise to the stars. Reach for the Stars embraces radiance, filtering it through Chanel’s unmistakable restraint and modernity.
Each and every piece is designed to catch the last rays of the sun and carry them into the evening. The collection balances opulence with lightness, architectural strength with fluid movement.
Diamonds take centre stage, set in monochrome black and white or ignited by flamboyant coloured stones. Throughout, three emblematic symbols emerge as guiding constellations: the comet, the wings, and the lion. Cascading necklaces, sculptural chokers, between-the-fingers rings, asymmetrical earrings, cuffs, brooches, and tiaras come together like a jeweller’s dress code—audacious yet refined, commanding yet free.
THE COMET: FREEDOM TO SHINE
First introduced in 1932, the star was a motif Gabrielle Chanel deemed “eternally modern,” a symbol of believing in one’s own lucky star. In Reach for the Stars, the comet is reimagined as a declaration of movement and brilliance.
Elongated lines of gold and onyx heighten scintillation, while diamond pendants trace the neckline with precision and grace. Rings become hand jewels; earrings transform into pure celebrations of light. Standout pieces include the Dreams Come True necklace, inspired by couture necklines, and the transformative Twin Stars necklace, which becomes bracelets and short necklaces in diamonds and tanzanite beads.
The story culminates with The Silhouette Clock: with Gabrielle Chanel herself, gazing skyward, on a black jade stand and dressed simply in a braid-trimmed jacket and pants in a final, poetic gesture toward eternity.
THE WINGS: ELEGANCE IN MOTION
For the first time, CHANEL interprets wings in High Jewelry, echoing Chanel’s enduring belief in self-liberation. These openwork jewels are feats of articulation, designed to move with the body, light as lace upon the skin.
The Wings of Chanel necklace unfurls around the neck, centred by a rare 19.55-carat Padparadscha sapphire glowing with pink-orange fire. Elsewhere, diamonds, sapphires, and tanzanite beads mirror the shifting hues of dusk, from pink hour to deep midnight blue. Transformable designs reveal bare backs, frame faces, and respond intuitively to movement, turning jewellery into a living extension of the wearer.
THE LION: AUDACITY AND AUTHORITY
The first interpretation presents the lion head-on, its mane encircled by a constellation of stars that form a radiant medallion. Here, the feline’s authority is rendered in white gold, set with a luminous mix of white and yellow diamonds in the Strong as a Lion set, or reimagined in yellow gold, haloed by diamonds for the more graphic Be the One set.
The second approach is more sculptural and introspective, portraying the lion in profile in line with Gabrielle Chanel’s belief in expressing a personality’s aura through form. In Embrace your Destiny, an ultra-light cascade of diamonds traces two opposing profiles, anchored by striking pear-shaped stones, while the winged lions of the Sky is the Limit set wrap around the neck like precious lace—assertive, poised, and quietly commanding.
With Reach for the Stars, CHANEL invites its wearer to embrace glamour as freedom, symbolism as strength, and light as a form of self-expression. This is High Jewelry not only to be admired, but to be lived in—to dare, to shine, and to rise.
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