The House of Chanel, more commonly known as Chanel, was founded in 1909, the small shop selling ladies headwear had moved to the up market Rue Cambon within a year. The house became especially famous with the elegant little black dress, its signature Chanel No. 5 fragrance and the popular, an elegant Chanel suit comprised of a knee-length skirt and trim, boxy jacket, traditionally made of woven wool with black trim and gold buttons and worn with large costume-pearl necklaces.
Post war Chanel’s long time friend Suzanne Gripoix began to produce Pâte de Verre and nacrés glass pearls for sautoirs, buttons and brooches.
Robert Goossens work was based on Byzantine, Celt, Egyptian and Etruscan designs and techniques. He designed her fabulous 50’s collection of bar pins, bracelets, crosses and barrettes because Chanel was besotted with Byzantine works of art. He adapted many designs based on lion’s heads, as Coco was a Leo. He worked for her from 1954 – 1971.
Louis Rousselet’s firm was the maker of a major source of hand made glass beads, producing barrel-shaped, cylindrical in stepped geometric designs. His factory produced huge amounts of glass pearls until the late 60’s when production ceased.
Both Rousselet and Gripoix used double rows of pearls and beads with floral patterns in between. These pieces were very feminine and very “French”, and were usually hand tagged.
Her belief was “jewellery was not created to make one look rich, but to adorn”.
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