The Jewellery the Chic French Girls Wear

When Robert Goossens founded his company in the 1950s, the goldsmith’s talent caught the eye of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. Monsieur Bijou, as Chanel referred to him, created pieces in a Byzantine baroque style: cuffs, pendants, and brooches in gilded metal with cabochons, crystals, and pearls. “Costume jewellery isn’t made to provoke desire, just astonishment at most,” Chanel was noted as saying, and Goossens was her preferred ornamentation. Goossens scaled from jewellery to decorative arts, and today, Robert’s son, Patrick the director of heritage and savoir-faire, leads a team of artisans who continue in the techniques of his late father at the Goossens atelier, now part of Chanel’s Métiers d’art work-shops in Paris.

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