It seems, this season, that the world of fashion is still captivated by the roaring twenties. Chanel’s new fine jewellery collection of geometric shapes, dripping in diamonds, evokes art-deco glamour, accompanied by the romantic backstory of the legendary Gabrielle Chanel’s stratospheric social rise and her love of the ‘café society’.

Within the collection, the Symphony series, a composition of light around different diamond cuts, features a long string of jewels looking almost like bars of music. Likewise, the Charleston series’ square medallions and fringes of gemstones conjure up the elegance of days gone by.

The house of Chanel was born at a time when society was starting to rebel against puritan conventions. Arts were on the rise – the ‘cult of talent’ would create an aristocracy of taste, as poets, musicians and socialites flocked to the French Riviera to carouse in the sunshine. The decade was known for extreme extravagance – and what better way to bring it back than a collection drenched in diamonds?

chanel.com

Tags: 1920s, art deco, Chanel, diamonds, jewellery