Few know that Gabrielle Chanel, founder of the homonymous Maison, was a woman who does not disown her peasant origins. Indeed, she had a way of expressing her passion for some rural symbols, as the sheaves of grain. Perhaps also because the collection of ears of wheat anticipated just her birthday, August 19. This rural atmosphere, transformed into jewels, now comes to the Ritz Hotel in Paris, in the Place Vendôme, with a surprise: a performance by Gad Weil, land artist, who brought a small cornfield in the “sacred square” of the jewelry. Inside the Ritz, however, the Chanel Suite shows an other suite, but jewelery, always inspired by the wheat, in gold, diamonds and precious stones. It is including the Fête des Moissons (feast of the harvest in French language), a necklace with fancy diamonds 25-carat yellow with an octagonal pattern, which alludes to the perimeter of the Place Vendôme and other 95 carats colored diamonds in various cuts, to compose the ears of corn. It is an extraordinary jewel composed of 1,200 diamonds weighing 120 carats. Who knows who will be able to afford such a gleaning. Margherita Donato
