Chanel’s Coco Crush Jewelry Goes Supple And Taps Gracie Abrams

PARIS — Some crushes don’t last but at Chanel, its Coco Crush fine jewelry line has been going strong since 2015.  

Now the French house’s bestselling jewelry collection is kicking off its second decade with new supple designs — and Gracie Abrams as one of its faces.

In her new role, the American singer-songwriter, who was nominated as best new artist at the 2024 Grammy Awards and collaborated with Taylor Swift, joins Blackpink’s Jennie Kim, who has been the face of Coco Crush since 2019.

Abrams’ first campaign in her new role is set to drop on Jan. 13.

Meanwhile, she sports one of the new additions to the line in her latest portrait for the French house.

At first glance, the choker reprises the incisions and delicately curving edges meant to evoke Chanel’s distinctive quilting, with a sliding clasp closure to adjust it closely to the neck.

But once in hand, it reveals a ribbon-like suppleness and an articulated construction that is akin to a high-end watch bracelet. Each cross-shaped quilting motif opens just so as the choker wraps around the neck, while its reverse gives glimpses of moving parts involved in its construction.

Frédéric Grangié, president of Chanel watches and jewelry, deemed the Coco Crush range “an extremely important line, not only commercially but also because it really carries the message of [our] jewelry,” he told WWD.

Here, the body-hugging flexibility nods to “the idea of comfort that goes back to Gabrielle Chanel in the 1920s” and her use of jersey for women’s clothing.

In addition to the choker, there is a short necklace, transformable earrings, rings, an articulated two-tone ear cuff and pendants, available in white, yellow and Chanel’s proprietary “beige” gold.

Rounding out the offering is a wide cuff of generous rounded proportions, rendered in beige gold.

The style revisits a design sketched by Chanel’s late director of the fine jewelry creation studio Patrice Legueréau back in 2012, given light tweaks for increased ergonomy. Along with rings that echoed the same distinctive quilting pattern, the cuff formed the bedrock of the line when it launched in 2015.

While Coco Crush has now emerged as the brand’s top-selling fine jewelry line, it wasn’t a runaway success at the get-go, recalled Grangié.

In fact, “it was a line that was little developed with only a few references and extremely limited distribution,” the executive said. “It wasn’t even available in the U.S., so you can imagine the niche aspect of Coco Crush.”

Still, when he took the helm of the division in mid-2016, this then-new line had “potentially iconic character,” he continued. “But we’re not the ones who decide whether a line becomes iconic; we can just decide to develop it in that spirit.”

One point that needed to be solidified was building suitable means of production, particularly harnessing the know-how of Chanel’s watchmaking facilities in the Swiss city of La-Chaux-de-Fond, where the overwhelming majority of the line is made.

Another was the emphasis on rings, with an eye toward stacking.

In Grangié’s opinion, Coco Crush truly came out of the gate with a late 2018 event in Beijing, followed by the line’s landing at doors around the world. It’s a moment where this line that “no one had really seen” became “self-evident,” he said.

Its position was further cemented with the arrival of Jennie as the line’s main ambassador for the range in 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic threw a spanner in the works, given that the French company does not partake in e-commerce. But since 2022, “it’s a very, very strong growth that has been uninterrupted to date,” according to the executive.

He attributed the range’s success to Legueréau’s “extremely powerful and outstanding” initial designs, which he deemed a coherent concentration of house codes, including the ease of wear, stacking and now, the second-skin suppleness.  

While the French fashion house did not share sales figures for the Coco Crush range, Grangié said it was “an indication of success when you’re capable of expressing the number of pieces sold over a short time frame,” such as an hour.

But the latest launches aren’t so much about celebrating Coco Crush’s 10th anniversary as they are a signal of the French fashion house’s ambitions.  

With prices starting around 1,500 euros for a small earring and going up to 60,000 euros for a full pavé necklace, it’s also reinforcing the brand’s fine jewelry offering during a time when jewelry momentum remains strong.

Counterintuitive as it sounds, constraints such as rising gold prices “participate in making these creations even more precious and of greater value,” according to Grangié.  

The upper end of the range is “a segment that is very important for us because it matches a certain Chanel client looking for more exclusive pieces and real preciousness as well,” he added.

But the goal is further on the horizon. Between the new designs and the upcoming campaign with Abrams, the brand is “putting in place all the necessary support to inscribe this line very coherently in what Chanel will be in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years,” Grangié said.