A visitor’s view of Kyoto is often focused upwards. As you wander its narrow laneways, lined with wooden Machiya, the ornate rooflines frame a landscape of ancient temples and distant mountains. In Arashiyama, towering bamboo stalks draw your perspective beyond the selfie-snapping crowds and towards the verdant sky. At the Fushimi Inari Shrine, thousands of crimson torii gates force your perspective higher and higher.
On the evening of June 3, anyone in the former Japanese capital gazing up would have been treated to an unexpected sight. Hovering over the hills above Higashiyama, three new constellations appeared, taking the form of a comet, wings and a lion. To mark the global debut of its latest high jewellery collection, Reach for the Stars, Chanel had commissioned a drone show that expressed its motifs in suspended spots of light.
Earlier in the day, there was an equally celestial feeling in the historic hall of the Kyoto National Museum. Beyond a reception room draped with white gauze and ethereal phrases in neon script (“Touch the sky,” “Dreams come true”), jewellery pieces glowed in a dark, mirrored installation.
The historic hall of the Kyoto National Museum.
Chanel staged its high jewellery debut against a backdrop of traditional music in temples, including the Daitoku-ji Oubai-in and Shogunzuka Seiryuden.Supplied
To pay homage to Japan and its craft traditions, a quintet of wing-shaped brooches mixing precious metals, gemstones and lacquer work of feathers and stars by Kyoto lacquer artisan Yoshio Okada were prominently displayed. But the overall exhibition made it clear that Chanel’s jewellers, led by its late director of fine jewellery, Patrice Leguéreau, interpreted the year’s theme beyond bodies you might catch in the night sky.
“I think everything starts with Gabrielle Chanel in 1932,” says Dorothée Saintville, Chanel’s international marketing director for watches and fine jewellery. That was the year that Chanel, the woman, debuted her high jewellery collection, called Bijoux de Diamants. It broke with convention by presenting not just singular baubles, but a grouping of pieces with a designer’s perspective on a distinct theme. It was a busy decade for Chanel.
“In the 1930s, when she came to Hollywood, she was invited by the film studios to dress the iconic stars of the era,” Saintville says, linking the 2025 collection’s red carpet-readiness. Reach for the Stars is as much an expression of the house’s celebrity connections and Gabrielle Chanel’s own entrepreneurial ambitions as an exploration of heavenly inspiration.
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There is an array of otherworldly sparkle to appreciate in its 113 pieces. Chanel has a tradition of playing with clothing details in its jewellery – the 2023 collection, Tweed de Chanel, articulated those nubbly textiles in shimmering new ways – and one of the literal stars of this latest collection is the Dreams Come True necklace. It mimics the form of a dress collar in white gold, with a diamond-studded, five-point pendant at its centre.
Chanel’s Strong as a Lion earrings are studded with white and yellow diamonds.
Gabrielle Chanel was a Leo and that motif entered the house’s jewellery catalogue in 2013 with its Sous Le Signe du Lion pieces. For 2025, the astrological beast becomes a pair of Strong as a Lion earrings with faces formed from white and yellow gold, and natural and yellow diamonds. True to the zodiac symbol’s high-drama traits, each earring is accented with pear-shaped yellow diamond drops in almost identical carat weights: 2.02 and 2.03.
The Sunny Days brooch features the wing motif.Supplied
“We have many symbols that are part of our universe,” Saintville says. “Each new one contributes to the enrichment of our signature and style.” According to Saintville, the winged silhouettes of Chanel dresses, again from the 1930s and worn by Hollywood actresses, were channelled into feathered details for the first time. Today, on the red carpet, statement jewels appear as often on a tuxedo’s lapel as a slinky dress. For those moments, there is the Sunny Days brooch. Its yellow sapphires, spessartite garnets and pink spinels capture the dreamy palette of a sunset before it fades to black.
When night fell that evening in Kyoto, and the humming galaxy of drones had disappeared into the forest, the actual stars in the sky met the twinkling lights of the city below to become one universe of light. This jewellery collection captures a similar moment, when almost a century of history, symbols and reinterpretations of one woman’s creative impulses combine in a single, glittering scene.
For more, visit chanel.com
Style Advisor travelled to Japan as a guest of Chanel. The company did not review or approve this article prior to publication.
