Chanel names Marie-Laure Cérède to lead its jewelry creation studio

Chanel has turned its jewelry studio over to Marie-Laure Cérède, the former creative director at Cartier, in a move that shifts more than a title. Beginning in October, she will oversee Chanel’s precious and high-jewelry creations across Paris and Geneva, taking the reins from the long era shaped by Patrice Leguéreau.

The appointment matters because Chanel’s jewelry does not behave like an accessory line tacked onto fashion. It is anchored at 18 Place Vendôme in Paris, where the House houses its Creation Studios, the high-jewelry workshop, the Patrimoine and the boutique under one roof. Chanel says each high-jewelry piece begins with an initial sketch from the Fine Jewelry Creation Studio, then moves to gemstone selection and finally to handcrafting by artisans at 18 Place Vendôme. That sequence is the tell: design intent, stone choice and setting craft are tightly linked, which makes leadership changes especially visible in the finished jewels.

Leguéreau led Chanel’s Fine Jewelry Creation Studio from 2009 until his death on Nov. 12, 2024, at 54, after earlier stints at Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier. His tenure gave Chanel a recognizable high-jewelry language, including the 1932 high-jewelry reinterpretation of Gabrielle Chanel’s Bijoux de Diamants, which the house describes as the world’s first high-jewelry collection. Chanel says the 1932 release helped revive interest in diamonds, noting that Diamond Corporation Limited’s stock rose in value just two days after its debut.

Cérède now inherits a house that already has a clearly legible vocabulary. Chanel’s fine jewelry draws on signatures such as the quilted motif, Mademoiselle’s flower and the beige-gold signature, while its high jewelry is meant to express “an allure” rather than simply maximum carat weight. That makes the key watchpoints less about volume than translation: whether Chanel leans harder into its emblematic motifs, how prominently it uses color and stone contrast, and whether settings feel more graphic, more fluid or more architectural under her direction.

The timing also places the move inside a broader company reset. Chanel’s 2024 annual results press release said the house entered 2025 with “a new chapter” and highlighted new Watches and Fine Jewellery flagship boutiques in New York and Taipei, a sign that the category remains central to the house’s ambitions. In a market where Richemont said its jewelry brands grew 8 percent year over year to €15.33 billion in 2024, Chanel is not making a modest personnel change. It is transferring design power into one of luxury’s most scrutinized stages, where a setting, a stone and a motif can redraw the house language for years.