Chanel’s new fine jewelry collection: Le Paris Russe de Chanel ♦ ︎
In 1924 Coco Chanel launched the eau de parfum Cuir de Russie. It is not a random name. The heady leather scent was what the French fashion queen linked to her relationship with Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, cousin of Tsar Nicholas II, who had been exiled following the assassination of Rasputin. Short, but intense, as they say. In any case, the special relationship between France and Russia, and between Chanel and Russian culture did not stop. Coco Chanel herself, for example, was never in Russia, yet she had artist friends like composer Igor Stravinsky and Sergiei Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes, among her friends.
According to the biographers of the designer, Coco Chanel was so fascinated by the great country of the East to even hire Russian nobles, who fled to Paris after the October Revolution: a prince of St. Petersburg was the private secretary, while Dimitri’s sister, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna was persuaded to open an embroidery workshop, Kitmir, which worked exclusively for the Maison Chanel.
The Tsar’s double-headed eagle is now back in the new collection of haute joaillerie named Le Paris Russe de Chanel: 69 pieces divided into two lines. The first celebrates the aristocracy, the palaces of St. Petersburg and Moscow, the military orders. The other line, instead, is inspired by Russian folklore, with the typical strong color embroidery. But there are also the ears of wheat which are an allusion to the boundless plains of Russia, but which are also the symbol of the Maison, together with the camellias, another flower that appears in the collection. Giulia Netrese
