A very elegant revolution
From baby steps to leading light: how Chanel became a watchmaking tour de force – in just 35 short years. By Avril Groom
When Chanel introduced its first-ever watch, the Première, in 1987, it marked a big event. At the time, however, few realised just how big a deal it was. Today, Chanel is a serious player in watchmaking: opening its own manufacture and creating its own movements, innovative designs, complications and high crafts. And if 35 years strikes you as plenty of time to go from zero to hero, for the world of watchmaking it’s a mere blink of an eye – some of Chanel’s competitors date back centuries.
The Première’s launch was a statement of intent. Rather than tweak an off-the-shelf design licensed from an anonymous Swiss manufacturer, as many fashion houses did back then, Chanel’s creative director of perfumes and accessories, Jacques Helleu, designed a distinctive watch that signalled the maison’s codes.
The name Première refers to the head of a couture atelier; the shape is based on the No.5 fragrance bottle stopper (itself styled on the outline of Chanel’s flagship home at Place Vendôme); the chain-and-leather bracelet reflects the strap of the maison’s quilted bag; and a minimalist dial suggests the timeless, chic design Coco Chanel so adored.
The watch had a quartz movement, as most women’s small watches did at the time, but that would change. “It parallels the house history of creation,” says Frédéric Grangié (pictured inset, near right), CEO of watches and fine jewellery. “A century ago, Chanel launched perfumes for the long term – No.5 is still a bestseller. In 1987, we opened a shop on the Avenue Montaigne for this one watch model, but we were already aiming to have a manufacture.”
In the end, it took six years to find a suitably creative Swiss watchmaker to buy, and another six years for Helleu to design the ceramic J12: a watch that Arnaud Chastaingt (inset, far right), director of Chanel’s Watchmaking Creation Studio, calls “the first 21st-century watch-world revolution”.
The sporty, unisex J12 (most versions were powered by bought-in automatic movements) became a global icon, and special editions, including top-end movements from Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi (APRP) and sapphire crystal structures, took
Chanel into the world of high horology. “Once we started on that journey, we were as serious as any traditional watchmaker, guaranteeing the best savoir faire with no compromise, and consistently creative,” says Grangié. “But we remain humble because we don’t have all that experience.”
The J12 perhaps eased Chanel’s big step in 2016 – the shift into movements, with the defiantly masculine Monsieur. “It took years,” admits Grangié. “Arnaud was insistent on fulfilling his vision of a watch and movement as beautiful inside as out.” The jumping hour and retrograde minute movement is complicated, but “starting with a larger men’s movement was slightly easier,” he says. “We are a couture house that doesn’t make men’s clothes, but it was a successful, high-craft talking point, not a ‘fashion’ watch.”
This was duly followed by women’s calibres that featured technology in the service of design – the camellia-shaped movement of the Première Skeleton, and the graphic, circular bridges of the Boy.friend Skeleton.
Chanel invests in and collaborates with independent watch brands, including Romain Gauthier and F.P. Journe, paralleling the métiers d’art couture craft specialist firms that it owns. Gauthier designed the bridges for the skeleton movements, and the manufacture creates ceramic components for other brands. However, as Grangié explains, “Our relationship with our partners is organic – we’re close to their founders and we share values but they remain independent.”
The latest partnership is more complex. Chanel has invested, as has Tudor, in movement maker Kenissi. It supplied the 12.1 calibre with its distinctive circle rotor for Chastaingt’s sleek 2019 revamp of the J12, as well as the small 12.2 version unveiled at the Watches and Wonders trade fair earlier this year in the 33mm J12, heralding the return of elegant and petite automatic timepieces.
Perhaps Chanel’s greatest achievement yet is the handwound calibre 5 in the new J12 Diamond Tourbillon. A harmony of circles, it is Chanel’s first flying tourbillon and a work of jewellery art. “We launched late because we weren’t ready but couldn’t compromise,” says Grangié. “Arnaud wanted a solitaire diamond on the tourbillon, sparkling as it moved, but the cut that works on a ring doesn’t shine on a watch. We had to keep recutting until it was right – 65 facets.”
That Chanel can work so meticulously is, he says, “due to our independence and putting craft and beauty above all”. Next up, to come full circle, is a revamp of the original Première this autumn. It is still under wraps but I’d bet on a small automatic movement, and the good news is that it’s bang on time.