Chanel is quite literally high on its own supply. For the hero piece of its latest haute joaillerie offering, the house brought out all of its emblematic symbols: the lion, the camellia, the star, and the sun. A great piece of jewelry should tell you something before you know a single fact about it. The Imprimé Lion necklace, the centerpiece of the maison’s new Signes & Symboles collection, does just that. The miniature motifs, rendered in a cascade of diamonds, do all the work of announcing its maker before you ever need to brag about it—and that’s before you get to the ultra-rare 20.66-carat Sri Lankan sapphire.
Each element of the Imprimé Lion necklace is meticulously polished with special thread.
Chanel
Other house codes are recognizable only to the wearer. “I want jewelry to be like a ribbon on a woman’s fingers,” Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel said in 1932 of her first high-jewelry collection, named Bijoux de Diamants. She strove to create jewelry as flexible as her trailblazing clothing. To that end, the diamond “fringe” on this necklace is supple, giving it a sense of light movement despite its weighty opulence. That ease, of course, is just an illusion. Like couture, no matter how difficult the construction, the wearer should never notice it. The necklace took 1,800 hours of craftsmanship and features five diamond cuts—triangle, oval, round, baguette, and emerald—amid a technically challenging setting that blends 18-karat white gold and rose gold.
From left: A Chanel artisan carefully assembles elements of the 18-karat-white-gold and rose-gold setting; a model wears the completed necklace.
Chanel
The result is a necklace that feels unmistakably Chanel in one glittering act of self-reference. Not unlike her late successor, Karl Lagerfeld, Coco was famous for crafting her own personal legend. That instinct for storytelling became embedded in the brand itself: Look at the designs and you’ll find flowers, stars, lions (the famously feisty designer’s Zodiac sign was Leo), and celestial bodies—all fragments of the founder’s own challenging childhood, polished into luxury iconography. Over time, those deeply personal references have transcended biography to become one of luxury’s most visible languages. Plenty of houses have motifs that are revisited season after season. Chanel has an entire mythology—and it knows exactly how to wear it.
Top: Stones including a 20.66-carat sapphire are set according to a final rendering of the necklace.
