A Lesson in Wearing Tweed
On Wednesday night, Chanel opened its first-ever standalone watch and high jewelry store in New York City. Inside the 5th Avenue, Peter Marino-designed space, millions of dollars of jewelry glittered among celebrity guests — Michelle Williams, Katie Holmes, Gracie Abrams, Kerry Washington, and more — gathered in their finest Chanel tweeds.
High jewelry, by the way, is not to be confused with fine jewelry, which is extravagant but not this extravagant. The sheer number of rubies and diamonds I saw last night was something to gawk at.
In 1932, Coco Chanel debuted her first collection of diamonds, and today, Patrice Leguéreau, director of Chanel’s Fine Jewelry Creation Studio uses Coco’s same design philosophy to create pieces like a necklace made of 18-karat gold with rubies and diamonds intertwined to look like Chanel’s signature, you guessed it, tweed. (That piece took 2,400 hours to make and features a lion, Coco was a Leo, after all.) Displayed at the store are collections including the Coco Crush collection, showcasing the quilted motif (they will provide engraving for the rings); the No. 5 collection; the Camélia collection, designed after Coco’s favorite flower; the Comète collection, inspired by constellations and more.
A just-as-extravagant dinner of caviar-stuffed potato, lobster ravioli, and tableside ice cream stations, as well as a performance by Abrams, followed the opening. Below, pictures of guests in their finest tweed.