50 Years of Chanel Jewelry at Drouot in October

Following on from Artcurial’s auction dedicated to costume jewelry earlier this summer, Drouot is dedicating a sale to Chanel’s fashion jewelry. The “Chanel, 50 years of jewelry” auction will take place on October 10 and features about 410 pieces ranging from 20 to 20,000 euros, with around three quarters of these coming from one private collection.

Coco Chanel loved to use glass paste, or pâte de verre, instead of precious stones, and famously mixed real and fake pearls in her own necklaces.

The glass paste technique was developed by Augustine Gripoix in 1869 and by the 1920s the Gripoix maison was run by Augustine’s daughter, Suzanne, who Chanel approached in order to produce designs inspired by Byzantine jewelry.

The Drouot sale will include jewelry created by Gripoix for Chanel between 1960 and 1970, along with jewelry designed in the early 1990s by Victoire de Castellane (now creative director for jewelry at Dior).