SOUNDING OFF: With the Chanel Première Sound watch necklace, you won’t just be able to tell the time. This addition to the Première watch line enables wearers to also listen to music or take a call.
And while the new design was first spotted this summer on Blackpink’s Jennie Kim, its longstanding brand ambassador Lily-Rose Depp, who is the face of a digital campaign, marks the watch’s Sept. 2 launch.
Depp was the face of the Chanel Première Reedition and has over the years lent her image to the brand’s Rouge Coco Bloom and Rouge Coco Flash lipsticks, the No.5 L’Eau scent, the J-12 watch and the Sac 22 handbag.
Two years in the making, the Première Sound started off as a sketch by Chanel watchmaking creation studio director Arnaud Chastaingt, who toyed with the idea of wired audio products worn as accessories.
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The watch necklace includes earphones developed with high-end audio brand Master & Dynamic, an 11-year-old American specialist that has previously worked with the likes of Louis Vuitton and Celine.
The Première Sound’s cabled audio element incorporates a remote for music and phone functions. In addition to a built-in 3.5mm jack, it come with adapters for USB-C and Apple’s Lightning formats.
And for those concerned by their eventual obsolescence or who prefer to wear the watch necklace on its own, the earphones can be removed.
Priced at 14,800 euros, this non-numbered limited edition will launch from Sept. 2 at selected Chanel locations worldwide.
Before that, the Première Sound will be sold exclusively at Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche from Aug. 31, taking pride of place in a pop-up around the Chanel Première line running until Oct. 2.
The 350-square-foot space, located on the first floor of the department store, will offer a range of Chanel Première watches as well as a retrospective of images by photographers Daniel Jouanneau and Guy Bourdin from the watch’s 1987 launch.
A design by Chanel’s artistic director of four decades, the late Jacques Helleu, the Chanel Première is “the first page in our watchmaking history…born out of an absolute freedom of creation,” Chastaingt said when he revealed its reedition in 2022.
