Jewellery has never been merely decorative. For millennia, it has conferred rank, declared affection, and guarded against the unseen—the weight of a crown, a posy ring engraved with a vow, the comfort of an amulet. Gabrielle Chanel knew this. Famously superstitious, she trusted signs: the lion, the camellia, the stars and wheat, and the talismanic number five.
Reach for the Stars, the house’s newest collection, extends that private language, highlighting two emblems and introducing a new one: wings. It also represents a decisive turning point in Gabrielle’s life. In 1931, she travelled to Hollywood to design outfits for film stars, championing streamlined glamour over studio spectacle. The experience sharpened her ideas about movement and light—ideas she later framed in a powerful quote: “If you’re born without wings, don’t do anything to stop them growing.”
For Chanel, the new emblem represents freedom, ambition, and ancestry, while Reach for the Stars formalises the symbol alongside the lion and the comet, translating its flight into plumed lines, openwork collars, and radiant settings.
This formalisation is also a farewell. Reach for the Stars is the last high jewellery collection designed and completed by the late Patrice Leguéreau, who led Chanel’s Jewelry Creation Studio for 15 years. Unveiled in Kyoto, it fulfils his wish to present in Japan and quietly honours his vision.
As a bright contrast to Leguéreau’s elegiac tribute, the collection offers chapters on the comet, the wing, and the lion, each comprising sets with buoyant titles such as Dreams Come True and Rise and Shine.
SHOOTING STARS
The comet was first featured in the Bijoux de Diamants collection from 1932, Gabrielle Chanel’s only foray into high jewellery. She viewed it as a symbol of freedom, representing a woman charting her own course. She also believed stars were eternally modern, embodying the idea of having faith in one’s lucky star. While quietly radical at the time, that perspective remains relevant today.
With Reach for the Stars, Leguéreau and the Jewelry Creation Studio explore the maison’s vision of glamour—not through ostentation, but through light and movement. In the Comet chapter, this concept is translated into designs that gracefully skim the collarbone, create trails across the wrist, and feature earrings that soar upwards like flares.
The Dreams Come True necklace is one of the standouts, whose black-coated gold combines elegantly with white diamonds to create Chanel’s signature black-and-white palette. Mixed diamond cuts catch and reflect the light as the piece moves. This draws attention to the clasp, where an asymmetric 1932 comet anchors a 6.06-ct D FL diamond.
Despite the sautoir’s size, its tubular chain and openworked mounts make it feel light, giving the impression that you’re wearing a scarf. Additionally, a concealed mechanism allows the two trailing pendants to be released, allowing the sautoir to shorten—a discreet feature that demonstrates its versatility.
For everyday wear within haute joaillerie terms, the Dazzling Star suite of a choker, bracelet, between-the-fingers ring, and earrings centres on a bursting comet and scatters tiny diamond-set stars across bezel- and prong-set mounts. Lines of onyx add graphic structure, sharpening the celestial shimmer with Chanel’s familiar rigour.
Play enters with the Aim for the Stars necklace and rings, built as a double layer: above, a deliberate scattering of seed pearls and diamonds; below, an interlace of gold and diamonds
that spells the word “star”. The necklace converts from choker to bracelet, while the rings echo the motif and come in varied precious metals and gemstones for mixing and matching. Modularity makes the comet concept easy to assemble and reconfigure.
MANE EVENT
If the comet traces direction, the lion speaks to poise and power. Gabrielle Chanel’s astrological sign—roaring from the buttons on her suits—became an emblem of Chanel haute joaillerie in 2012, a cipher for strength tempered by elegance.
In Reach for the Stars, the Jewelry Creation Studio offers two readings of the motif. The first depicts the beast facing outwards, with a sculpted head and a blazing medallion formed by the lion’s mane encircled by stars. In Strong As A Lion, that medallion becomes a sautoir that can be worn long or shortened. A companion between-the-fingers ring pairs the lion’s head, haloed with yellow diamonds, with a star set with a 3.04-ct fancy vivid yellow diamond.
With Follow Your Heart, the leonine motif softens. Cast in platinum, the profile sits within a perfect circle of diamonds, red spinels, rubies, and luminous moonstones. Here, the palette—white light against crimson and opaline—tempers power with romance. The suite comprises a statement necklace whose feathered curves draw the eye to the central medallion, a bracelet that reprises the roundel in smaller links, a ring that sets the lion within a gem-studded orbit, and deliberately mismatched earrings that show off all three motifs: the lion, wing and comet.
A second, more sculptural expression shows the lion’s profile—a first for the house. It comes into its own in Embrace Your Destiny, where the Fine Jewelry Creation Studio gives the necklace a continuous, uninterrupted fall. Twin winged lion profiles flank a starry cascade that drapes like fabric. Engineered to wear lightly, it is claspless—a deliberate echo of the 1932 Bijoux de Diamants necklaces—and wears easily.
Rows of mixed cut diamonds in white gold create a dense, luminous flow, while perfectly matched pear-shaped centre stones (5.62ct and 5.60ct, both D FL, Type IIa) add to the drama. A discreet mechanism allows the diamond strands to be detached for shorter wear. A companion ring has a 10.15-ct D FL pear-shaped diamond at its centre, with an engraved lion along the shank as if it was meant for the wearer as much as the room.
FLYING HIGH
This finale stars a new visual code for Chanel jewellery: wings. The collection’s most precious piece is the transformable Wings of Chanel necklace. Two wings rest at the collar, leading the eye to a 19.55-ct padparadscha sapphire—one of the rarest sapphires and a first for the house. When the trailing pendant is detached, it becomes a bracelet, while the remaining section becomes a short necklace.
More clever craftsmanship is demonstrated in Full Swing. With its two-point clasp, the asymmetric necklace easily transforms from lariat to sautoir. The earrings are deliberately mismatched—a winged fan on one ear, a star stud on the other—with detachable pendants that swap at will. Rarest of all is the tiara, a seldom-seen Chanel flourish centred on a 3.08-ct pear-shaped diamond cradled in a diamond-set wingspan.
Five Wings has the last word. Conceived as a suite of five gold brooches finished in urushi maki-e lacquer, they were developed over three years with Kyoto master Yoshio Okada, whom Chanel has collaborated with before. Each precious wing features its own colour palette and lacquer design, proving that you do not always need large gemstones to command attention. As with Leguéreau’s last collection, they serve as a tender closing.
