High jewelry by Chanel: the Coromandel collection inspired by Chinese panels decorated with lacquer designs ♦ ︎
If you do not know where the name comes from, here’s the explanation: it’s called Coromandel a type of Chinese lacquer produced primarily for export. It is so called because once it was shipped to European markets through the Coromandel coast of south-east India.
This type of screen was loved by Gabrielle Chanel, who used it in her apartment on Avenue de New York and that of Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, in Paris, and then her suite at the Ritz, in her villa in Lausanne, in Switzerland, in 1968.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Coromandel has become over time also a line of jewelry signed Chanel. Thet it has now become a high jewelery collection, on the occasion of the Paris haute couture week.
From the panels with sailing ships, palaces, flowers and birds, in the typical style of Chinese art, the Coromandel collection’s jewels are grouped into four different lines, mixing oriental style, with stylized mother-of-pearl designs, with the rich western tradition, which features cascades of diamonds. Certainly some pieces seem designed for the public of the new rich of China, like the earrings Fleur de diamant, while the Évocation Florale collier seems to evoke the art deco style. Margherita Donato
