What does it feel like to wear a heavenly star? This is the kind of thing that Patrice Leguéreau thinks about daily. As the director of Chanel’s jewellery creation studio, it’s his job to help us find new and vivid ways to adorn ourselves.

His brief covers the entire Chanel universe, from the everyday rush of a quilted, gold Coco Crush ring to the gobsmacking glory of a 55.55-carat diamond necklace. “In Chanel, more than anywhere, every piece of jewellery is full of sense and full of stories,” says Leguéreau, speaking to us from his light-filled studio above the Place Vendôme. His latest collection exemplifies that idea. Dubbed “1932”, it was unveiled in January and channels the heavens, paying tribute to the only high jewellery collection that Gabrielle Chanel ever created.

Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel was a jewellery revolutionary. She rewrote the rules in the 1920s when she popularised costume jewellery, which she described as “refreshingly free of arrogance”. Chanel made the distinctive Maltese cuffs she created with the Duke of Verdura her signature and would habitually drape herself in ropes of fake pearls (often worn with real ones given to her by lovers). But in 1932, as the world reeled from the Great Depression, she sensed a mood change, bringing with it a desire for deep authenticity. Her attention turned to real diamonds because, she said, “they represent the greatest value in the smallest volume”. Her infamous Bijoux de Diamants collection was made with platinum-set white diamonds, donated by the London Diamond Corporation, which hoped Chanel’s creativity would reinvigorate the demand for precious stones. Everyone from Picasso to Gloria Swanson and Jean Cocteau came to see the collection at Chanel’s apartment in Rue Cambon and, in true Coco style, it was so startlingly modern and groundbreaking that it still resonates in jewellery circles today.

Inspired by celestial bodies (the sun, moon and stars) and couture (ribbons, bows and flapper fringes), Chanel created necklaces resembling comets that appeared to orbit the neck; there were starburst rings and brooches, and a striking, fringed tiara. It shocked the traditional jewellery establishment. “She brought a different spirit, a very modern vision that was different from the classical jewellers at that time,” explains Leguéreau. “It’s rich, it’s full of energy, and we can feel that it was created by someone free, with a real idea and a real vision.”

The mystique of that original “1932” collection was further enhanced because most of it was broken up soon after Chanel exhibited it, with the diamonds being sent back to the trade body that supplied them. Chanel continued to produce covetable costume jewellery, only reintroducing high jewellery in 1993.

Ninety years on, Leguéreau is paying tribute to that legendary collection with a spectacular, 81-piece “1932” high jewellery collection, once again inspired by celestial bodies.

Leguéreau joined Chanel from Van Cleef & Arpels in 2009 (and before that was at Cartier) and his approach is characterised by his desire to get close to his ultimate muse, Coco. As well as studying her life and archives, he’s also modelled his studio on Chanel’s decadent Rue Cambon apartment. She used the lavishly decorated space above her store for entertaining and never slept there, returning to her suite at the Ritz each night instead. “It’s like a private apartment,” he says of his office, where he has adopted many of the same symbols and keepsakes as the house’s founder. There’s an impressive lion sculpture above his computer, as well as talismanic wheatsheaf and singing bird motifs – “things that make me connected to the Chanel world,” he says.

But it’s in attitude, not objects, where the two creatives share the most common ground. Leguéreau, like Chanel before him, is driven by a desire to create something new and groundbreaking. His biggest fear, he says, is “repetition” and, inspired by Chanel’s modernity, he pushes himself to take fresh perspectives. Every new collection brings a creative reset. “To be in her vision, I have to think as a free designer and feel free to create what I feel, and what I want, to be the best for Chanel,” he explains.

Daily runs help to clear his mind and allow creative thoughts to flow – he takes epic jogs through Paris, New York or wherever he finds himself on his many inspiration trips. “In the beginning, I never think about jewellery,” he says. “I just think about the spirit, a story to tell, the universe. I try to catch elements, sensations, a wish, a dream, that I want to use as a starting point.” The human connection with jewellery is age-old and runs deep, particularly with precious and rare stones. His ultimate aim is to create a narrative and provoke feelings. Leguéreau talks of “the magic of gems” and how the meanings we invest in them give jewellery its special cultural power. “The message behind the piece, the emotion, it’s very, very important for me. I really want each collection to open a new world, a new territory, and tell a new story.”

He starts each collection the same way, by creating drawings or paintings. They’re often abstract because his aim, at the beginning, is not to arrive at a specific form, but to enter “inside a world, a universe, a feeling, a sensation, a spirit, a state; just to listen to my mind, my body, and, naturally, things appear.” For the “1932” collection, he describes seeing, in his mind’s eye, “movement with energy, a light that would cross like a shooting star”. He interpreted the majestic swoosh and spiral of celestial movement into comet necklaces and star rings by layering different cuts, colours and weights of stones. The results are a dynamic expression of the wonder of heavenly bodies. Some pieces have a distinctive, visual “Whoosh!” while others appear to explode with cosmic energy or are incandescent. His preference for large stones helps create a sense of planetary scale and his use of colour is superlative. A rare blue diamond ring has its own sense of mystery while sapphires, tanzanite and blue opals exude the cool of the night. One impressive yellow diamond necklace seems to radiate and glow with the changing colours of the setting sun. “Jewellery is the art of composing stones together,” says the designer.

There’s an effortlessness to the “1932” pieces when they are on the body, but they are made with complex and rich jewellery techniques. “It is a very pure collection,” says Leguéreau. “The designs are very efficient, very strong. It’s not full of many free details. Each element brings something to the story.” Like the original Bijoux des Diamantes, many are transformable or have detachable elements. “I had to work with the jewellers very closely to develop a very discrete, small mechanism to make the transformation possible and it wasn’t always very easy to add and to have a beautiful piece at the end. So that was a big challenge,” he says. Wearable, transformable, comfortable yet stunningly modern, the “1932” collection beautifully express the values of the house as laid down by Coco Chanel herself.

A Chanel piece, he says, should always feel like a second skin – something that is a part of you. “It’s very Chanel to choose to wear the jewellery in different ways and to be able to have detachable parts. To wear the jewellery differently at any moment of the day is very important. Now, more and more of our clients ask about jewellery that they can wear during the day as well as during the evening and it is important for me to be able to add a light version to the jewellery and [create] a richer version for the evening, so you have this option to choose the way to wear the jewel.”

Leguéreau believes this sense of personal style is a defining characteristic of the house. “The freedom to wear it as we want to wear it,” is very Chanel, he says. “Jewellery is not something rigid that you have to wear with constraint, so it’s very important to always have the freedom. This is the spirit of Chanel. This is what she wanted to create in fashion, in jewellery, to give the feeling of lightness, to give the feeling of movement.”

Although he operates independently from the other creative heads at Chanel, they all keep in touch. For last year’s 100th anniversary of Chanel No. 5, Leguéreau spent time in Grasse, the French Riviera’s world capital of perfume, with Chanel’s nose Olivier Polge, and recently attended Virginie Viard’s Cruise fashion show in Monaco. After each collection he creates books of his drawings of all the pieces and shares them with his fellow métier heads. “The amazing thing is that, in the end, every product is very well-connected. It’s really all part of the same house because we are taking our inspiration from the same source, we just use different techniques to create pieces.” Chanel’s coherent sense of style, emphatically expressed by its founder, is what brings it all together. “It’s elegance, femininity, purity, simplicity, lightness, comfort and the strength of design,” says Leguéreau. Ninety years on, it still looks fresh.

From Issue 20 of 10 Magazine Australia, out now.

chanel.com

Photographer DAVID VASILJEVIC
Creative Director SOPHIA NEOPHITOU
Text CLAUDIA CROFT
Sittings editor GARTH ALLDAY SPENCER
Hair ROGER CHO at Artlist using Oribe
Make-up MAYUMI ODA at Bryant Artists
Model JAN BAIBOON at Supreme Management
Nail technician MARIEKE BOUILLETTE at Calliste using Kure Bazaar Photographer’s assistant CLEMENT MAHJOUB
Digital operator MITKO FRANGOV
Casting ALEXANDRE JUNIOR CYPRIEN at Creatvt
Production TRBL MNGT

Jewellery throughout ‘1932’ collection by CHANEL HIGH JEWELLERY