TO celebrate a century of Chanel’s N°5 perfume, Director of the Chanel Fine Jewellery Creation Studio, Patrice Leguéreau, has created the house’s first high jewellery collection devoted to a perfume.
First produced in 1921, Coco Chanel sought French perfumer Ernest Beaux to help create a scent that was a “perfume for women with the scent of a woman”, expressing the modern, liberated women of the 1920s.
To form the high jewellery collection Leguéreau also drew from Chanel’s 1932 ewellery collection Bijoux de Diamants, crafted from authentic diamonds.
Having already teased the 55.55 necklace from the collection, an emblematic white gold and diamond triumph, Chanel has now released the full collection. The collection comprises 123 pieces with each one modelled from design features and facets of the perfume, from expressing the geometric silhouette of the bottle, to the delicate notes of Jasmine and May Rose radiating from the perfume.
The Number
Chanel N°5 was bestowed with the number as Coco Chanel believed the number would bring good luck. Now, the fluid lines of the number are melded onto a yellow gold and diamond choker with a rich golden beryl droplet. The magnificence of the collection is heightened with the spectacular Eternal N°5 necklace, embellished in a spill of round, pear, navette and oval-shaped glittering diamonds, also embedded with the ability to transform into a choker and brooch.
Eternal N°5 necklace in white gold and diamonds
N°5 Drop bracelet in yellow gold, diamonds and yellow beryl.
The Sillage
To replicate N°5 droplets lingering on the skin, for this set, Leguéreau crafted pieces that shimmer over the body. Using sumptuous, fiery tones, the glorious Golden Burst necklace is decorated in 350 carats of blazing imperial topazs’ and diamonds, dripping down the neck.
The Blushing Sillage necklace is bursting in pink hues, set in diamonds, crimson rubies, garnets and vivid yellow sapphires. The necklace is crafted in an exquisite spider web like pattern, with the precious stones forming a gradation of colours resembling the golden jus of the N°5 perfume.
Blushing Sillage necklace in pink gold, diamonds, rubies, spinels, garnets and yellow sapphires.
Golden Burst necklace in yellow gold, platinum, diamonds and topaz.
The Flowers
Chanel infused N°5 with the particularly evocative scents of ylang-ylang, jasmine and may roses from the fields of Grasse. Translating the blooms into celestial objects, Jasmine flowers are moulded into the shape of stars, adorned in intricate, twinkling diamonds.
The May rose is rendered into a moon-like flower, with the fragile petals dipped in a multitude of pink sapphires.
Grasse Jasmine asymmetrical earrings in white gold, yellow gold and diamonds.
May Rose ring in pink gold, diamonds, pink sapphires and cultured pearls.
The Bottle
The graphic shapes that encrust the Bottle collection are reminiscent of the angular contours of the perfume bottle. Yellow diamonds and sapphires cascade across yellow gold rings, pendant earrings and sautoir necklaces. Diamonds and pink morganite stones hover over the body, like droplets of the perfume settling on the skin.
N°5 Abstraction necklace in yellow gold, platinum, diamonds and yellow diamonds.
N°5 Abstraction earrings in yellow gold, platinum, diamonds and yellow diamonds.
The Stopper
Reflecting the lines of the perfume stopper, the exquisitely cut octagon shape is at the heart of this architectural jewellery set. The set embraces three different styles and features the Crystal Stopper necklace in white gold and diamonds, a rectangle pair of earrings embellished with dainty diamonds and an emerald cut 5.21-carat diamond set in yellow gold.
Bubbly Stopper earrings in white gold, diamonds and cultured pearls.
Diamond Stopper ring in yellow gold, platinum, diamonds and onyx.
by Sophia Ford-Palmer