What makes a multifunctional jewellery piece? How Chanel, Cartier, Boucheron and Van Cleef & Arpels are making the functional fantastic – and stars like Taylor Swift are loving it
Nadine Ghosn’s Crayon bracelets are kooky fun, Chanel went for a sautoir/earphone mash-up, and Cartier strung a watch onto a blinged-up carabiner – Rihanna, Zoe Saldana and Blackpink’s Jennie are fans of the trend
Jewellers have long been fascinated by the idea of turning ordinary objects into something precious. Think of Cartier’s nail in its Juste un Clou collection, or contemporary designers such as Nadine Ghosn with her viral Crayola collab bracelets.
The same could be said for the trend of wearing watches – once simply a functional accessory – as pieces of jewellery. Taylor Swift and Rihanna this year helped usher in a new dawn for watches worn as glittering choker timepieces at major red carpet moments.
Utility and function has been explored in other ways by luxury brands, such as Chanel reimagining its Première watch, first released in 1987, as a pair of wired headphones with a sautoir necklace, a piece recently worn by Blackpink’s Jennie at an event in Seoul.
Meanwhile, Cartier continues to explore new ways to tell the time with the launch of a bejewelled Carabiner watch that can be clipped onto a handbag or belt loop as part of its Cartier Libre Polymorph collection. The range also includes a brooch and lapel pin watch, though it was the Carabiner – a brilliantly subversive, skater-girl take on preciousness – that sparked immediate adoration online. With its pavé diamond-set dial and coral, moonstones, emerald, diamonds and onyx adornments, it carries forward the maison’s commitment to creating wearable objects, and its prowess in art deco design.
Other creations further back in its history include cufflinks set with a compass and a watch, and of course brooch watches. As Pierre Rainero, Cartier’s director of image, style and heritage, told British Vogue, “Wearing time in a different way has been a constant preoccupation at Cartier.”
Frank Everett, senior vice-president and sales director for jewellery at Sotheby’s New York (and also, it must be noted, a fanatical collector of brooches), says function has long been important when it comes to jewellery pieces designed to be worn attached to garments.
“Jewellery that attaches to a garment is almost always about function, going beyond mere decoration,” he says. “Cape clips, hat pins, belt buckles and buttons have all historically been set with gemstones, thereby turning them into jewels. Necklaces are sometimes meant to be worn on the shoulders, like the Van Cleef & Arpels necklace we recently sold for US$3.6 million. The piece has clips that attach the necklace to the shoulders of a garment, to keep the piece in place when worn.”