2019/20 JEWELS & TIME 25IN TIME
Friends of the
house of Chanel
the likes of
Vanessa Paradis
(opposite),
Liu Wen and
Claudia Schiff er
donned the
new J12 in the
new advertising
campaign, It’s All
About Seconds;
the new Calibre
12.1 is a workhorse
movement that
looks beautiful toospree. First came Romain Gauthier in 2011, an independent
watchmaker known for its innovative haute horlogerie
movements. That same year, Chanel set up its in-house
movement manufacturing department in G&F Châtelain,
which culminated in Calibre 1, its fi rst in-house movement in
2016—a feat it repeated in 2017 and 2018 with the Calibres 2
and 3. Then, at the end of 2018, Chanel announced that it had
acquired a 20 per cent stake in F.P. Journe, another renowned
independent watchmaker. Earlier this year, it announced
yet another acquisition—this time, of Kenissi, a relatively
unknown movement manufacture.
Kenissi was the missing piece in Chanel’s watchmaking
puzzle. Despite its haute horlogerie achievements, Chanel
needed to be capable of producing high-quality movements
on a much larger scale—in the thousands, much more than
its haute horlogerie workshops are capable of. So it went
searching. “Chanel is privately owned, and
very secretive,” said Nicolas Beau, the brand’s
international business development watch
and fi ne jewellery director. “We wanted a
partner that was also secret, that was not
for sale, and that had the same value of
luxury as Chanel. And there is only one. The
Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, which owns
Tudor.” And Rolex, of course. Chanel now
has a 20 per cent stake in Kenissi (which
still makes movements for Tudor), free reign in terms of
movement creation, as well as access to the engineers under
the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation. It used its new arm to create
the Calibre 12.1, the movement powering the revamped J12.
This new calibre is arguably the most important part of
the J12 revamp. According to Beau, “the one point that was
lacking in the previous J12 is that it was not as beautiful from
the back as it was from the front.” As such, an ETA 2892
movement would not do. The Calibre 12.1, however, does
the job quite nicely. When viewed from the back, you can
see the movement’s special oscillating weight, which has a
circle cut out of it—because it is more beautiful, and because
the circle motif has become one of Chanel’s watchmaking
signatures. To make sure that it has the same winding
effi ciency, however, the oscillating weight is made out of
tungsten. On top of being quite pretty from the back—as
much as a mass-produced movement can be—it also carries
certifi cation for precision and reliability from the Swiss
Chronometer Testing Institute (COSC), has a 70-hour reserve,
and a 5-year warranty.
From zero to covering all of its watchmaking bases
in 32 years—that’s no mean feat, even for a brand as big
as Chanel.