Latest news with #GabrielleChanel
Vogue Singapore
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue Singapore
A look inside Gabrielle Chanel's idyllic villa on the French Riviera
Dusk is settling over Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, and little puffs of red dust are flying into the jasmine-scented air as acclaimed dancers Boris Charmatz and Johanna Lenke move fluidly around the clay tennis court at La Pausa, the idyllic villa Gabrielle Chanel had designed according to her exacting specifications in 1929. It's hard to know what her paramour the Duke of Westminster would have made of the cinematic—and supremely physical—duet that unfolded in front of a crowd of artists, curators, collectors, and patrons on Friday evening, but he doubtless observed some more traditional athletic confrontations during his summers spent with Chanel on the French Riviera. The grand hall at La Pausa, Gabrielle Chanel's clifftop retreat overlooking the Bay of Monaco. Courtesy of Chanel The designer made her clifftop retreat La Pausa (meaning 'the pause'), a haven for artists and intellectuals in the 1930s and '40s, inviting the likes of Jean Cocteau, Pierre Reverdy and Luchino Visconti to while away summer evenings among the ancient olive trees and beds of fragrant lavender sloping gently towards the Bay of Monaco. 'After dinner,' reads a Vogue report of a night at La Pausa in the late 1930s, 'the rugs are suddenly rolled up… Salvador Dalí amuses himself with a large borrowed black hat, mimicking a character from the Inquisition. The Duchess of Gramont, draped in brocade, jingles her Indian jewels, while painter Christian Bérard sports an Easter egg on top of his head, and Coco ties wide whimsical ribbons in her hair.' The feminine mirrored bathroom off Gabrielle Chanel's master bedroom has ocean views. Courtesy of Chanel Coco Chanel eventually sold La Pausa in 1953—although not before Dalí had painted his 'The Endless Enigma' on the grounds—but the fashion house she founded acquired it a decade ago in 2015. Now, following a painstaking renovation by architect Peter Marino (who personally nurtured two cactus plants to ensure they reached as tall as those that originally stood sentinel at the foot of the villa's stone staircase), the house looks exactly as it did when Chanel and her circle of high society friends gathered around the piano at nightfall to hear Misia Sert play. 'When I spoke to Peter Marino of his extraordinary five-year renovation, he said that he had meticulously worked to make it feel like Gabrielle Chanel had just left this house,' Yana Peel, president of Chanel Arts, Culture & Heritage, told guests including British filmmaker Sir Isaac Julien, South Korean artist Ayoung Kim, and Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist at the dinner that followed the dancing on La Pausa's opening night. 'And being here in this magnificent setting, it is not very hard to imagine the Roaring Twenties—les Années Folles—in this space where Salvador Dalí painted 11 paintings, where Misia Sert played the piano all night as the Ballets Russes danced.' The dining room opens out onto the central courtyard, complete with an olive tree the designer liked to climb. Courtesy of Chanel Indeed, Marino pored over hundreds of archive photographs in order to restore Chanel's beloved second home to its former glory, from the piano in the living room (where Grammy-nominated singer Alice Smith performed for guests on Friday night) to the books that line the intimate library, the mirrored walls in Coco's magnificent bathroom, to the bronze Giacometti lamp that sits beside her bed. While the property—with its calming sea views, graceful stone staircase and cloister garden—is undeniably spectacular, the decor (with the notable exception of that decadent bathroom) is simple—almost austere, likely inspired by the clean lines and hushed atmosphere of Aubazine Abbey in Corrèze, where the designer spent much of her childhood following the death of her parents, and which was so key to the aesthetic she would later establish at Chanel. François Hugo, Pierre Colle, Audrey James Field, Maria Ruspoli-Hugo and Gabrielle Chanel on the olive tree in the cloister at La Pausa, 1938. Roger Schall © Schall Collection In her speech to guests, Peel noted that she was initially surprised to discover that Gabrielle Chanel did not decorate the walls of La Pausa with artworks, but realized that, 'for her home, she collected artists. And she gave them the ultimate luxury, which is freedom, time, and space.' Chanel Arts Culture & Heritage is reopening La Pausa, which will remain a private residence but serve as a 'seat of creativity, culture and hospitality', with the ambition of extending that tradition, she said. 'The volatility in our world brings us back to the sources of joy that remain everlasting,' said Peel. 'Friendship, art, nature, and truly the primacy of human creativity.' This article first appeared in Vogue US.
Observer
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Observer
Chanel Looks to Build Cultural Capital With Arts Magazine
Over a century after Coco Chanel founded her label in Paris, the French fashion house is making a foray into the boutique print media sphere by starting its first glossy arts magazine. Chanel's new annual tome, Arts & Culture, was released last month, with the first issue devoted to chronicling the practice and lives of contemporary artists (alongside plenty of promotional Chanel editorial content). It features cultural essays about artists like Tracey Emin, Lu Yang and Tomás Saraceno. There's an interview with photographer Stephen Shore and a report on artificial intelligence art by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. The cover depicts a bust of Chanel that was made by sculptor Jacques Lipchitz in 1921. 'This is Chanel's first arts and culture magazine and you can feel Gabrielle Chanel's legacy in its pages,' said Yana Peel, the brand's president of arts, culture and heritage, using Chanel's birth name. 'She was a voracious reader and was known for surrounding herself with a network of audacious creatives. We're trying to extend that legacy through physical print media.' 'We're seeing a resurgence of interest in independent magazines and in independent bookstores,' Peel added. 'We want to give this moment the amplification that we can through the global stage Chanel has.' The magazine also unabashedly promotes the Chanel universe. It features figures who have professionally collaborated with the brand, like actress Tilda Swinton and architect Peter Marino, alongside stories that celebrate Chanel's history. Among them is an essay by art historian RoseLee Goldberg titled 'A Life of Performance: Gabrielle Chanel and the Avant-Garde,' and a lengthy visual essay by photographer Roe Ethridge, who captured an array of Chanel's personal belongings, like selections of her jewelry and a handwritten letter to her from Jean Cocteau. Chanel Looks to Build Cultural Capital With Arts Magazine Lending an indie feel to things, the publication will be available only at a selection of independent book and magazine stores like Casa Magazines in New York City, Foreign Exchange News in London, Libreria Bocca in Milan and Still Books in Seoul, South Korea. Chanel's art magazine arrives at a moment when fashion houses have been striving to adapt to changing consumer attitudes about luxury. 'This is something we've been seeing for a while, like when Bottega Veneta took down all their social media channels, to focus on more meaningful world-building marketing tactics,' said Emily Huggard, a professor of fashion communication at Parsons School of Design. 'As people move away from consumption, brands are finding ways to build cultural capital and social capital. Younger generations see something garish about luxury, a tone deafness in luxury's exclusivity, so brands are looking for other ways to connect.' 'This magazine shows how brands want to now link themselves to enduring culture, instead of transient moments,' she added. 'For Chanel, this also allows them another way to tell their historical story, which can get tiring to do.' Huggard cited another example in Loewe's new monograph dedicated to Jonathan Anderson's tenure at the Spanish luxury house, which includes a foreword by novelist Zadie Smith. There's also Saint Laurent, which announced a film production division in 2023, and Van Cleef & Arpels, which established and (generously) funds a roving contemporary dance festival, Dance Reflections. Huggard was not surprised that Chanel's magazine was chock-full of Chanel content. She considered whether that prevented it from being taken seriously as an art publication. 'When people read something like this, they can tell there's a brand undertone to it,' she said. 'But it all depends on the writers, how the articles are done, and if it feels culturally tapped in. A magazine like this can be relevant, if they get that synergy right.' —NYT
Tatler Asia
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Tatler Asia
Chanel's Arnaud Chastaingt on the creation of J12 Bleu
Deep, intense and meticulously elegant, this unique shade reflects the House's longstanding love for blue, reinterpreted with technical brilliance. Scratchproof, highly durable and matte to perfection, the J12 Bleu is a striking symbol of Chanel's savoir-faire. For the first time, Chanel dresses its iconic J12 in blue matte ceramic. Twenty-five years after the J12's debut, the J12 Bleu takes Chanel's ceramic craftsmanship to new heights with an exclusive hue developed over five years. He invites us into his studio for an exclusive look at the inspiration behind Chanel's breathtaking new J12 Bleu Arnaud Chastaingt, director of the Chanel Watchmaking Creation Studio, describes the new blue as 'too blue to be black, too black to be entirely blue'—a colour that shifts with the light and mood. The J12 Bleu collection debuts with nine models, some set with vivid blue sapphires. What does the 25th anniversary of the J12 mean to you? Firstly, I realise how fast time flies! When I discovered the J12 at the end of my studies, it was like an electric shock, making me aware that watchmaking is a vast creative sphere. It has been a constant source of fascination ever since, and the J12 remains my muse. Guiding it into unexpected territory is still an exercise that inspires me, and I'm particularly proud that this cherished project has come to fruition just as the J12 celebrates its 25th anniversary. See also: Watches and Wonders 2025: This is how Chanel used a secret watch to seal time with a kiss How did you come up with this combination of material and colour? Chanel is a maison where exceptional expertise is crucial across all its fields, from jewellery to fashion, fragrances, and, of course, watchmaking. This deep commitment to craftsmanship is reflected in Chanel timepieces through the mastery of ceramics at our manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Chanel elevated ceramic to the status of a precious material when we first introduced it in 2000, and that's very inspiring. In recent years, I've worked more closely with this highly specialised unit to push the boundaries of creativity and innovation, both aesthetically and technically. Gabrielle Chanel showed time and again through her creations that the combination of blue and black could work beautifully, contrary to what some believed. I found this blue-black duality captivating, as well as the interplay between the matte, muted ceramic and the precious blackened gold set with sapphires of a very distinctive hue. It took countless tests and nearly five years of research to achieve the emotional impact we wanted from this blue. After this long dialogue on colour, we achieved exceptional finishes, such as polished chamfers on the matte case, as well as the side and centre links.
Vogue Singapore
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue Singapore
With Reach For The Stars, Chanel high jewellery gets glamorous
The word 'glamour' has an interesting origin. It comes to us from the Scottish, who in the 1800s derived it from 'grammar'. The idea was that education and erudition, rare and arcane at the time, involved some degree of the magical and the mystical. So glamour became an act of illusion, of some kind of magical trick made to the appearance to mystify and allure. Earlier this month, Chanel introduced Reach For The Stars, its latest high jewellery collection, in the refined, old-world city of Kyoto. The French maison describes this new collection as 'glamour according to Chanel'. In its high jewellery collections, Chanel has explored and iterated on graphical signatures like tweed, lions, and comets—even sports!—but it hadn't yet taken on an abstract idea like glamour. Fortunately for the maison, it had a perfectly apt moment in its history to reference. That's the 1930s, when Gabrielle Chanel was invited by a Hollywood film studio to design costumes and outfits for its stars and starlets. And is there a world more adept at the kind of illusory, smoke and mirrors glamour than Hollywood? Fake worlds built on soundstages and sets; hair, makeup and costumes to turn actresses into larger than life characters; the play of light and shadow to tell grand stories to stir hearts; and the scale of a silver screen to make humans appear as demigods. Chinese dancer Wu Meng-ke at Chanel's Reach For The Stars collection launch dinner, wearing a suite of wing motif designs. Above, Japanese actress and model Nana Komatsu at the same event, wearing comet-themed Take My Breath Away jewels. Courtesy of Chanel Gabrielle Chanel would spend only a little bit of time in Hollywood all told, but her vision has inspired the Chanel Fine Jewellery design studio. An independent woman, wearing unfussy evening dresses with pure lines and streamlined silhouettes. From America, she took on an understanding of how they wore their jewellery: simple but devastatingly chic cascades of diamonds, statement cocktail rings with stones that draw eyes, and imposing necklaces that themselves became the visual centre of a look. The Wings of Chanel masterpiece necklace, set with a Padparadscha sapphire. Courtesy of Chanel The necklace is set with a 19.55-carat cushion-cut Padparadscha sapphire. Reach For The Stars is a story of glamour told in three chapters. The most exciting is perhaps Wings, where Chanel is debuting a new visual motif in its jewellery. These wings are doubly inspired. First, by a Gabrielle Chanel quote on ambition from a September 1938 article in Vogue France: 'If you were born without wings, do nothing to prevent them from growing'. Second, from a number of Hollywood film costumes that Chanel designed with winged details and silhouettes. The masterpiece of the collection, for instance, is named the Wings of Chanel. It's a necklace with a pair of diamond wings that unfold and wrap sensually around the neck. A line of diamond drops and buttons—evocative of the neckline of a dress—ends with an exceptional 19.55-carat Padparadscha sapphire in a perfect hue of salmony pink and orange. Dreams Come True necklace, with a line of black-coated gold and cascades of diamonds. Courtesy of Chanel The Dreams Come True necklace on view at the collection exhibition held in Kyoto. Courtesy of Chanel In the Comet chapter, Chanel expands on its most foundational design signature in jewellery. The first and only collection of high jewellery that Gabrielle Chanel herself designed was the 1932 Bijoux de Diamants, in which diamond creations were accented with stars and comets. A true standout, and this editor's favourite, is the Dreams Come True necklace. Chanel's Fine Jewellery Creation Studio sought to embody its black and white colour code in jewellery, and took inspiration from the sensual flou drape of an haute couture dress. Hence two woven chains of black-coated gold that trace a neckline, almost as if they were a rolled hem or a French seam. It's contrasted on its sides with a cascade of mixed-cut diamonds, scattered with the airiness of Chantilly lace. At its centre, a comet clasp set with a 6.06-carat DFL diamond. Sky Is The Limit ring in white and yellow gold, set with an emerald-cut 11.11-carat Fancy Vivid Yellow diamond, and with white diamonds. Courtesy of Chanel The collection closes out its thematic triptych with the Lion, the astrological and lucky sign of Gabrielle Chanel. The symbolic strength and boldness of the lion is treated with delicate, masterful subtlety in Reach For The Stars. Chanel has, for example, rendered the lion's head in diamond-set openwork mountings, so that the leonine figure becomes an almost geometric suggestion. On the Sky Is The Limit suite, a vision of a winged lion emerges. The great cat is sculpted as an abstracted, open-worked motif flanked with a mane of marquise-cut and bezel-set round diamonds. On this cocktail ring, a centre stone with the luminous, leonine warmth: an impressive 11.11-carat emerald-cut Fancy Vivid Yellow diamond.
New York Times
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Chanel Looks to Build Cultural Capital With Arts Magazine
Over a century after Coco Chanel founded her label in Paris, the French fashion house is making a foray into the boutique print media sphere by starting its first glossy arts magazine. Chanel's new annual tome, Arts & Culture, was released this week, with the first issue devoted to chronicling the practice and lives of contemporary artists (alongside plenty of promotional Chanel editorial content). It features cultural essays about artists like Tracey Emin, Lu Yang and Tomás Saraceno. There's an interview with the photographer Stephen Shore and a report on A.I. art by the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. The cover depicts a bust of Ms. Chanel that was made by the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz in 1921. 'This is Chanel's first arts and culture magazine and you can feel Gabrielle Chanel's legacy in its pages,' said Yana Peel, the brand's president of arts, culture and heritage, using Ms. Chanel's birth name. 'She was a voracious reader and was known for surrounding herself with a network of audacious creatives. We're trying to extend that legacy through physical print media.' 'We're seeing a resurgence of interest in independent magazines and in independent bookstores,' Ms. Peel added. 'We want to give this moment the amplification that we can through the global stage Chanel has.' The magazine also unabashedly promotes the Chanel universe. It features figures who have professionally collaborated with the brand, like the actress Tilda Swinton and the architect Peter Marino, alongside stories that celebrate Chanel's history. Among them is an essay by the art historian RoseLee Goldberg titled 'A Life of Performance: Gabrielle Chanel and the Avant-Garde,' and a lengthy visual essay by the photographer Roe Ethridge, who captured an array of Ms. Chanel's personal belongings, like selections of her jewelry and a handwritten letter to her from Jean Cocteau. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
