yacht—he was a keen yachtsman
himself. This was a watch in Helleu’s
sleek polo-neck-wearing image, but its
style resonated with women all around
the world and became, it is fair to say,
the first mainstream watch made from
new generation ceramic. One saw, and
continues to see, it everywhere—in
glossy black and porcelain white—and
yet almost 20 years of familiarity have
bred only respect.
It is respect bordering on reverence
that characterises the redesign of the
J12 in this its 20th year. It is a relaunch
of such subtlety that, had it not been
heralded with much fanfare and
flourish, I very much doubt anyone
would have noticed. Most of the
changes are microscopic: a fraction of a
millimetre here, a handful of microns
there, a barely perceptible change of
font, the replacement of a flat surface
with an ever-so-slightly curved
one—they are alterations on an almost
philatelic level. If nothing else, that this
“redesign” comprises micro-adjustmentsA
sk people the name of
the genius behind the
modern rise of Chanel
from a classic couture and perfume
house into a fashion megabrand and
the majority is likely to answer Karl
Lagerfeld, Chanel’s late creative
director of fashion. With his block-
buster runway shows and chronic
neophilia, the pyrotechnically
creative German did much to
shape the Chanel we know
today (he is probably the
reason Miley Cyrus was
wearing Chanel during her
performance at
Glastonbury this year).
But a few better-informed
individuals might mention
Chanel’s late artistic director
Jacques Helleu. Helleu was the
man behind Chanel’s image,
responsible for those glossily chic
advertisements that were more
French than a baguette wearing a
beret and waving the tricolor. Helleu
was not an easy man but he was chic to
the tips of his elegant fingers. His
grandfather Paul César Helleu was the
portrait painter of choice for the gratin
of the Belle Epoque; his father Jean was
a painter too, and also established the
connection with Chanel, designing
perfume bottles for the brand.
Only the passage of time will tell
whose legacy was the most significant
and it is hard to think of fashion
funerals that have approached the
splendour of the near state-level
obsequies accorded to Karl Lagerfeld.
But while Lagerfeld was creative
director of axiomatically evanescent
fashion, Helleu worked on more
enduring objects. In 1987 he designed
Première—the dainty woman’s watch
which borrowed the leather and metal
links of a Chanel handbag chain for its
strap. Then, at the turn of the century,
he designed the J12 for himself, its
aquatic leanings implicit in the name
borrowed from the class of racing
testifies to the brilliance of the original
design by Jacques Helleu.
If changes are so imperceptible, are
they worth making? Chanel’s sage and
bonhomous watch boss Nicolas Beau
believes so; after all, this is watch-
making, where an entire world is
bound within an object 40mm across
and a centimetre high. “Like any icon,
at some point it has to evolve,”
explains Beau. “If you look at watches
that have been here forever—or you
feel have been here forever—in fact
they change slightly, every five, 10, 20
years, so that they are more adapted to
modern times.”
But there was a strategic as well as
aesthetic motivation too: a redesign
was necessary to accommodate a new
movement. Like many brands, Chanel
was reliant on the Swatch Group for
movements for its regular production.
“We also wanted to be able to control
our destiny in terms of movement,”
says Beau. “We felt it was time to be
independent and be able to follow our CHANEL (ORIGINAL J12 IMAGES); COURTESY OF CHANEL (HELLEU ON BOAT)From left: The original
J12 from 2000; former
artistic director Jacques
Helleu in a J12 yacht race;
Helleu’s original sketch
of the J12VANITY FAIR ON TIME AUTUMN 2019Case St udy
By Nicholas Foulkes
Perfect Negative Respect bordering
on reverence characterises the redesign
of the stylish monochrome Chanel J12
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