Twenty years since launching to slack-jawed fashion and watch press alike, Chanel has remodelled its J12 for the 21st century. Allow Laura McCreddie-Doak to wind things back and see what’s next
If you know about watches or storied French fashion houses, chances are you’ll know the name Jacques Helleu. Even if the name still doesn’t sound familiar, his work certainly will be.
During his 40 years as artistic director for Chanel he honed the image of the ailing maison, aligning its trajectory towards becoming the powerhouse it is today. He was the man who, in 1968, revitalised the reputation of Chanel No 5 by putting Catherine Deneuve in a dinner suit; made Nicole Kidman dance on Parisian rooftops, directed by Baz Luhrmann; and turned Vanessa Paradis into a bird in a cage.
He also invented the J12 watch.
At the time, Helleu was communications director of both the watch and jewellery departments. His starting point, for a project that would take seven years and reinvent the sports watch entirely, was himself. Chanel was a firmly female fashion house. Its codes and iconography were all derived from its formidable founder; there was nothing masculine on which Helleu could base his designs. So he looked to the two areas that interested him – cars and boats.
Nautical speedometers were a starting point for the bezel; he was also drawn to a particular all-black J-Class superyacht called Stealth, designed by Italian industrial Giovanni Agnelli, plus the J-Class 12-metre yachts that competed in races such as the Americas Cup (the watch’s namesake, if you hadn’t already guessed).
The seven-year time frame was caused by the material. Helleu wanted it to be black, scratch and oxidisation proof and with a hardness close to that of diamond. In other words, ceramic: a notoriously hard material to tame within the tolerances demanded by a water-resistant watch case.
The only successful proponent thusfar had been Rado, whose technology was definitively ring-fenced by parent group Swatch. Therefore, it fell to Chanel’s proprietary Swiss component makers G&F Châtelain to innovate on their own. And boy did they deliver.
J12 was launched in 2000, adorned head to toe in the maison’s trademark black.
Chic yet practical, here was a fine-jewellery sports watch made from ceramic that was good to 200m beneath the waves. Perfect for strolling the deck of a Monaco superyacht or the dancefloor of Paris’s Le Jeune.
Although designed originally as a man’s watch, the vogue for women wearing oversized watches meant the J12 became a regular fixture on the wrists of insouciant supers. True to form, a 38mm J12 was launched three years later, in pure-white ceramic – another technical triumph that led Chanel to proudly rebrand G&F Châtelain in its own name.
Keen to appeal to men who might not want to share their watches anymore, in 2007 Chanel launched the ultra-masculine 41mm J12 Superleggera – a brooding chronograph hybridised with titanium, bearing the same italic typography of Italy’s famed ‘super-light’ coachbuilder as the bonnet of every Aston Martin DB5.
Over the last 20 years, the J12 has housed a flying tourbillon (thanks to relations with Audemars Piguet’s complications skunkworks), been paved with diamonds – even featured Mademoiselle herself with arms as hands, a la Mickey Mouse.
For the start of its 20th birthday celebrations, in typical Chanel style, the watchmaking studio decided to take a more low-key approach. It tasked its watch-creation studio director, Arnaud Chastaingt, with subtly reinventing the icon for the 21st century.
“I have a very special relationship with this watch; it has always fascinated and inspired me,” explains Chastaingt, who has been a fan of the J12 since his days as a design student. “It has never lost its edginess, and it has made a mark as one of Chanel’s most iconic creations. It has now become my muse. I made sure it celebrated its 20th birthday in style.
Like any diva worth her title, the J12 had two birthdays. Last year, Chanel introduced the refined form of the J12 2.0. The changes were subtle – 40 notches on the bezel instead of 30, redesigned numerals and indices, a reduced crown, indicators on the railway track and, to the delight of watch connoisseurs, a brand-new movement from Kenissi Manufacture – the industrial arm of Tudor, in which Chanel acquired a 20 per cent stake in the January.
This year, Mlle J12 had her second 20th birthday, and this time she put on the ritz.
Chastaingt’s inspiration was Coco Chanel’s words: “Black has it all, so does white. Their beauty is absolute. It’s the perfect harmony.” He took that harmony literally and created the J12 Paradoxe, with a case in all-white ceramic, apart from a slice of black down its right side.
“For 20 years, the J12 would basically be either black or white,” says Chastaingt. “In 2020, I am fusing both colours together in the same creation. From a watchmaker’s perspective, the J12 Paradoxe is a new twist on the graphic two-tone [or ‘bimetal’] concept in watchmaking. But here, the marriage of gold and steel is replaced with a combination of black and white ceramic.
“Most importantly, though, the two- tone concept is also a signature, a graphic hallmark that is cherished at Chanel.”
This amazing aesthetic effect was achieved by cutting and fusing two ceramic cases of different dimensions to form one casing. What’s more, if all-ceramic seems too pedestrian, there’s also an haute joaillerie option that’s black with a slice of diamonds instead.
Even more impressive is the J12 X-Ray. As the name suggests, you can see right through, because this is an all-sapphire watch. Everything apart from the hands, mainspring, train wheels and some components that have to be metal in order to function are made from sapphire crystal.
“It’s bespoke, a study in haute couture, made according to the rules of haute horlogerie,” explains Chastaingt. “The mounting bridge and gear bridge are in sapphire to allow the light to come in. This transparency reveals the watchmaking latticework, with flawless finishing.”
Chanel has certainly proved itself to have a unique take on what ‘haute horlogerie’ means, something that is driven by Chastaingt’s refusal to adhere to any notion of watchmaking tradition other than the ones set by the maison itself.
“To begin with, I didn’t really like the term ‘complication’,” he admits. “I never understand watches that require you to have an engineering degree to tell the time. If Gabrielle Chanel were alive today, she would probably reject such creations. She believed that simplicity and comfort were a guiding philosophy.
“In 2013, the year I joined the house, Chanel completely brought me to terms with that philosophy. Chanel has a very idiosyncratic definition of haute horlogerie.”
If that idiosyncrasy continues to produce watches with half of the creativity and panache of the latest crop of J12s, Chanel can continue to define haute horlogerie any way it likes.
It seems Jacques Helleu’s original vision remains 2020 in every sense.
Photography William Bunce
Set design Paulina Piipponen
