Wallpaper 9

BRONZE POMEGRANATE

SECRET BOX WITH BAROQUE

GARNETS, €3,000; BRONZE

FIG LEAF TRINKET BOWL (WITH

FOUND OBJECT), €1,300,

BOTH BY GOOSSENS X HARUMI

KLOSSOWSKA DE ROLA

GOOD AS GOLD

A pioneering Paris jewellery house branches out

When I meet Patrick Goossens at the

Goossens HQ in Pantin, Paris, legacy and

continuity are on his mind. He was

bequeathed the couture jewellery business by

his father Robert in 1978. ‘I’ve worked here

for 43 years,’ he says. ‘It’s my duty to carry the

DNA of the house to the next generation.’

Robert Goossens, who died in 2016,

worked as a studio jeweller on semi-precious

designs for Cristóbal Balenciaga, Jean Rochas

and Elsa Schiaparelli throughout the 1940s

and 1950s, but it was his partnership with

Coco Chanel that established his reputation

as the foremost couture jeweller in Paris.

The pair first began working together in 1954.

Chanel had recently revived her fashion

house, having returned to Paris from exile in

Switzerland, where she had relocated after

the war. Robert was working with Maison

Degorce, the first-choice costume jeweller

of many fashion houses, but had also started

to make an impact with his own designs.

His bold style was favoured by Chanel, who

shunned the notion of jewellery as a wealth

indicator, deliberately pursuing an art-driven

‘fake’ costume-design approach. While it

was not concerned with precious materials, »

PHOTOGRAPHY: FRANÇOIS COQUEREL WRITER: CARAGH MCKAY ∑ 107

Jewellery