Chanel turns Coco Chanel into a game character, unveils diamond chessboard

Chanel has turned Gabrielle Chanel into a pixelated avatar, and the move says as much about luxury today as it does about the house’s own codes. At Watches and Wonders Geneva 2026, Chanel unveiled Coco Game, a 14-piece capsule built around gaming imagery, with a showpiece chessboard that it described as the first haute horlogerie chessboard in the world and set with 9,236 brilliant-cut diamonds.

The strongest image in the collection is also the most literal. The chessboard sits on an obsidian base, its black-and-white ceramic tiles outlined by 516 diamonds, while 32 pawn sculptures are made from 18-karat white gold, black-and-white ceramic and diamonds. One queen pawn hides a watch dial beneath its pedestal and can be worn as a necklace, collapsing the line between objet d’art, timepiece and jewel. Chanel’s version of game play is not casual or nostalgic. It is meticulously engineered, with the house using scale, contrast and sparkle to turn a familiar board game into a trophy object.

The watch side of the collection is just as calculated. Chanel’s official site identifies three haute horlogerie pieces in Coco Game: the J12 Coco Game, J12 Coco Game Charms and Boy·Friend Coco Game. All three are hand-set with baguette-cut diamonds at the brand’s Swiss manufacture, part of a wider watchmaking structure that Chanel says is designed in Paris and assembled in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. That split between Parisian design and Swiss execution remains central to the brand’s watch identity, especially under Arnaud Chastaingt, who directs the Chanel Watch Creation Studio at Place Vendôme.

Chanel’s broader Geneva presentation made the same point at a larger scale. Watchtime reported that the house’s 2026 showing was its most expansive yet, with new J12 sizes and movements, new Première and Première Galon expressions, the Mademoiselle Privé Bouton Lion, the Monsieur Lion Tourbillon Black Edition and the Nœud de Camélia collection. In that context, Coco Game reads less like a novelty than a signal: Chanel is leaning harder into visual systems that feel playful, coded and collectible, while keeping the luxury promise anchored in diamond setting, ceramic work and Swiss watchmaking.

Galerie magazine noted that the queen figures in the chessboard come in black and white, with the white version carrying 842 brilliant-cut diamonds on Mademoiselle’s tweed jacket and the black version finished with 193 diamond accents. Each queen conceals a hidden clock and can be worn on a white-gold, diamond and onyx chain. For a house built on recognizable symbols, the message is clear: the next chapter of luxury may look more like a game, but it still has to earn its shine.