In 1997, following in Mademoiselle’s footsteps, Chanel acquired the townhouse at 18 Place Vendôme and made it the setting for its jewelry and watchmaking. The Chanel watch and fine jewelry boutique has now be reopened after a multi-year renovation and now visitors can finally experience the magic of a building imbued with the spirit of Gabrielle Chanel: a living heritage where freedom and creativity have always reigned supreme.

Following year-long works, the celebrated American architect Peter Marino has reinvented, over three floors and for the second time, a completely new boutique. Sleek lines, a distilled concentration of arts and crafts, and an exceptional savoir-faire have come together to nurture a contemporary vision of the private world of Mademoiselle Chanel.

At the entrance, a vestibule with transparent walls seems to play with the spaces like a labyrinth, foreshadowing the ambience that awaits in the shades of gold, beige, and brown of its lacquer panels.

The walls lined with black lacquer or relief motifs woven in gold evoke the apartment at 31 rue Cambon, its Coromandel screens and its walls dressed with golden hessian fabric.

The vestibule, like a safe, showcases an exceptional piece of High Jewelry from the Chanel Patrimoine collection. Featuring a 55.55-carat custom-cut DFL Type IIa diamond, the N°5 necklace has found its home and is revealed enigmatically through mirrored walls.

Thus, over three levels, with beige, white, black, and gold singing in harmony, spaces opt for pared-back lines and materials, offering a discreet opulence, paying homage to the world of Chanel jewelry, with beige gold or gilded bronze adorning certain ceilings.

Works by Peter Marino – a subtle presence in the boutique and placed here and there in the different spaces – underline the resolutely contemporary universe of this address.

18 Place Vendôme, the iconic address of Chanel, has reopened its doors 90 years after the creation of ‘Bijoux de Diamants’, the one and only High Jewelry collection created by Mademoiselle Chanel in 1932.