Celebrating 10 years of her label, the jewelry designer continues to find the balance between classic and contemporary.

Charlotte Chesnais is on the lam, and has been for over two decades. The French jewelry designer, celebrated for her sensuously sculptural gold and silver pieces, didn&rsquo;t mean to buy contraband&mdash;she was only a teenager, after all. But three of her antique rings, which she still owns, turned out to be the spoils of a Louvre-style heist.
&ldquo;I come from a small town in France without many shops,&rdquo; explains Chesnais over tea at New York&rsquo;s Mark Hotel. So when she wanted something special, she&rsquo;d travel to nearby city Le Mans, where she discovered a charming vintage jewelry shop that became her go-to spot for gifts and pre-loved treasures.
A few years later, when she was 18 and living in Paris, Chesnais got a call from her mom. &ldquo;She told me to turn on the TV.&rdquo; On the screen was a report about thieves who&rsquo;d been looting jewelry all over Europe. She recognized one of them as the proprietor of her beloved boutique. &ldquo;We were frightened because we thought the police would come take our jewelry,&rdquo; laughs Chesnais, now 40. So far, they&rsquo;ve eluded authorities.
If Chesnais has been trying to keep a low profile, she&rsquo;s blowing it. The designer, who spent a decade working under Nicolas Ghesqui&egrave;re in ready-to-wear and, later, jewelry at Balenciaga, has received plenty of critical acclaim since launching her line 10 years ago. Not long after her debut, she won France&rsquo;s prestigious (and highly publicized) ANDAM Accessories Prize. She&rsquo;s also opened boutiques in Paris and Tokyo, recently launched fine and men&rsquo;s jewelry, and has successfully become one of the most buzzed-about jewelry designers of her generation.

Charlotte Chesnais boutique in Paris. Courtesy of Charlotte Chesnais.

But don&rsquo;t mistake buzzy for faddish. &ldquo;I want classics,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;I want my jewelry to be timeless, but at the same time striking and very from now. But I don't want it to be trendy. Trendy is something that doesn&rsquo;t last.&rdquo;
She achieves that via clean, undulating designs rendered in silver, vermeil, and, since launching fine jewelry, 18-karat gold, pav&eacute; diamonds, pearls, and candy-colored gemstones. Her earrings and bracelets are minimal, fluid, and airy&mdash;arresting in their simplicity. Perhaps something of a metaphor for modern womanhood, Chesnais&rsquo;s signature aesthetic is rooted in balancing opposites. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s sharp but it&rsquo;s curvy. It&rsquo;s sensual but not romantic. It&rsquo;s present but light. This is my vision of what I would love to express through my jewelry.&rdquo;

Rings CHARLOTTE CHESNAIS

Jewelry CHARLOTTE CHESNAIS

Many of Chesnais&rsquo;s designs are also profoundly personal. Just after launching her brand, she gave birth to her first child, and had to juggle running a business with caring for an infant. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a very practical woman. I don&rsquo;t change during the day,&rdquo; she says, matter-of-factly. As such, she feels her jewelry, too, must be practical. &ldquo;I turned 30 when I launched the brand and then I became a mother. I&rsquo;d just done 10 years of Balenciaga, and of dressing in an amazing wardrobe and spending all my money on Prada and everything. And then suddenly I was like, I don&rsquo;t want this anymore,&rdquo; recalls the designer, who wears jeans, a white T-shirt and a navy blazer&mdash;as well as layers of her necklaces, bangles, and rings&mdash;when we meet. Thus, she decided her designs would be &ldquo;cool and edgy and sharp&hellip;but at the same time, I need to be able to change a diaper.&rdquo;

Earrings CHARLOTTE CHESNAIS

Necklace CHARLOTTE CHESNAIS

Bracelet CHARLOTTE CHESNAIS

Family and motherhood are enduring inspirations. &ldquo;The most valuable thing is the people you care for. And the time you have with them,&rdquo; says Chesnais, noting that she designed her popular Twin bracelet after giving birth to twin sons. But some of her biggest influences are simply things she sees in her everyday life. &ldquo;It could be a chain in the parking lot, something at the yoga studio, or, of course, a sculpture at the museum.&rdquo; Case in point, her Ivy bracelet, which elegantly swirls around the wrist and then sweeps upward to run between the thumb and pointer finger. It was conceived from an iPhone charging cable. &ldquo;I was on the phone on a really uninteresting call playing with my charging cable and looking at myself in the mirror,&rdquo; says Chesnais. Her boredom led her to unconsciously wrap the wire around her hand. &ldquo;Then I was like, This is really cool. It&rsquo;s amazing. I love it so much! So I cut the cable&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t even think about it&mdash;taped it to my hand exactly how I wanted it to look, and took a picture.&rdquo; She and her team, which is currently about 40 members strong, went through numerous fittings to ensure the bracelet had the same supple ease as her charger. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a very good bracelet for us,&rdquo; she says.

In addition to helming her brand, Chesnais collaborates with other labels, both behind the scenes and via noteworthy collaborations. For example, she was visiting New York to celebrate her new capsule collection of shapely tableware for French luxury brand Christofle. In the past, she&rsquo;s worked on accessories for Rabanne and A.P.C. Presently, she&rsquo;s lending her skills to ultimate cool-girl brand Khaite.
In our ever-more-swiftly spinning world, Chesnais believes that, across the fashion scape, jewelry is becoming increasingly popular, with some of her clients opting for rings and bracelets over Ready-to-wear and the latest must-have handbag. &ldquo;I mean, if you buy a ring, you can give it to a relative or your kids; it&rsquo;s forever. You can melt it down for the gold. You can&rsquo;t say that about a pair of shoes,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Jewelry is also very linked to art, and it&rsquo;s very personal, very sensitive,&rdquo; she adds. &ldquo;If you think about it, it&rsquo;s the closest object you have on your skin that you never remove. When you make love, when you give birth, you usually keep your jewelry on. Give me another object that&rsquo;s on your skin as often.&rdquo;
As her brand turns 10 and expands, she feels a particular affinity for her Round Trip ring, an abstract, coiled confection that was among her first designs. On this day, she wore the gold-and-pav&eacute;-diamond iteration, an offering in her new fine jewelry line. &ldquo;It represents the idea of exploring and then coming back to where you started, not as a failure, but more as being rooted. I cherish that feeling,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;but I cherish being very curious all the time. So this ring has a lot of meaning for me.&rdquo;
Her abiding curiosity continues to push her covetable brand forward. And, like her Round Trip ring, she has indeed come full circle&mdash;or perhaps she&rsquo;s done more of a figure eight. Chesnais went from unwittingly buying stolen finery to creating delectable wares worth stealing. That said, don&rsquo;t get any ideas&hellip;

Charlotte Chesnais Doesn't Want Her Jewelry to Be Trendy

Tags

Related Articles

Shopping

Surprise Your Loved Ones With the Ultimate Luxury Jewelry Gift Guide

Fashion

From Gabrielle Chanel to Elsa Peretti, Meet the Women Who Changed the Jewelry World

Pop culture

7 Shocking Celebrity Jewelry Heists

Recommended posts for you

L'Officiel Art

Jenee Naylor Takes L'OFFICIEL To Art Basel Miami 2025

Fashion