Gabrielle Chanel redrew the parameters of women’s dressing with her embrace of unexpected fabrics and silhouettes. Physically active (she rode horses, skied, and played tennis and golf), she translated her love of sport into her clothing, introducing an ease of movement with materials, such as jersey, which prefaced the opening of her first sport atelier in 1921.
Patrice Leguéreau, director of Chanel’s Fine Jewellery Creation Studio, nods to this championing of easy-to-wear, streamlined silhouettes in the design of the brand’s new high jewellery collection, Haute Joaillerie Sport. Inspired by Gabrielle’s study of how sportswear is worn close to the body, here Leguéreau’s supple jewellery eschews a restrictive fit, designed instead to freely drape. As with the clothes, so here, too, we see an unexpected combination of materials woven throughout, from…
