How Coco Chanel's crush on a polo-playing Parisian inspired a revolutionary handbag and fine jewellery line

Last month, Chanel celebrated its latest Coco Crush jewellery collection where all good Hollywood parties unfold — at the legendary Chateau Marmont hotel. New Chanel ambassador Gracie Abrams (daughter of Star Trek director J.J. Abrams) was in attendance, plus Heated Rivalry breakout star Connor Storrie and singer Lily Allen — whose impromptu performance of ‘Pussy Palace’, from her latest, headline-making breakup album, went viral on Instagram.

(You can read about the New York home she shared with her now ex-husband, here.)

One wonders if, between the main course and pudding, Gracie, Connor and Lily paused to reflect on the chain of events that brought them together in that moment. A chain of events stretching back more than a century, to France, and to one man’s love of all things equestrian.

In the late 19th century, Étienne Balsan (1878-1953) — the son of a wealthy textile business owner whose fabrics swaddled the French and British armies in the Boer War — was sent, from France to England, where he was enrolled in boarding school.

You might expect to read, perhaps, that the schoolchild turned up with a pencil case, or a trunk full of tuck, or a framed photograph of his parents. But no. He arrived with a dog — and then purchased two horses for hunting, an activity which he apparently spent a lot more time on than he did attending classes.

Balsan went on to be an officer in a light cavalry regiment, but renounced his career, making it clear to his two older brothers (one of whom married Consuelo Vanderbilt, after her divorce from the Duke of Marlborough) that he didn’t want much to do with the family business either. Instead, he would breed horses and compete in polo matches out of the Château de Royallieu, located near Compiègne, in northern France. Sadly, the handsome, ivy-clad building was requisitioned by the Nazis during the Second World War as an internment and deportation camp, and subsequently destroyed.

Today, Balsan is better-known as a playboy and as one of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel’s (1883-1971) lovers, but the two remained close friends up until his death and he wielded an indelible — if often misappropriated — effect on her eponymous brand.

As well as multiple romantic partners, including Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel, another polo player and her future sponsor, Balsan introduced Chanel to horses. ‘The only happy times were those I spent on horseback, in the forest,’ she said of the time she spent at Royallieu (it wasn’t a wholly happy experience, likely because the polo player also had a mistress-in-residence, Emilienne d’Alençon). ‘I learned to ride, for up until then I hadn’t the first idea about riding horses.’ During this formative period of her life, Chanel took to wearing tweeds, riding breeches and tailored equestrian jackets, traditionally sported by men — in stark, and probably deliberate, contrast to d’Alençon, who donned great gowns and dotted veils.

Chanel the brand was founded several years later, in 1909, initially just manufacturing and selling hats. A mere decade later, having expanded into womenswear, its enigmatic founder was raising eyebrows with her avant-garde designs that rejected 20th-century corset culture in favour of clothes that prioritised comfort and functionality. They are clothes that we still reach for, on an almost daily basis, today. Some, if we are lucky, made by Chanel; others from brands shamelessly inspired by them. Think: the little black dress; the soft-structured tweed suit, inspired by Scottish sportswear; jersey sweaters, cut from fabric previously reserved for men’s underwear; and later, two-tone shoes whose beige body elongated the leg and black to-cap helped to conceal wear and tear. (Matthieu Blazy sent a barely-updated iteration down the catwalk during his debut Spring/Summer 2026 Ready-to-Wear show for Chanel in October 2025.) ‘If I had to die wearing just one brand, it would be Chanel,’ says Leila Kashanipour, a jewellery designer and self-professed ‘magpie’ and brand consultant, when I speak to her, ‘because of everything it represents’. Later in the conversation, she comments on Matthieu’s Métiers d’art December show, which was staged in an abandoned New York subway station: It was epic — you can really see yourself wearing it [everyday], rather than reserving it for an occasion.’

In 1929, Coco introduced shoulder strap bags, to free women’s hands from holding clutches — an idea that seems so glaringly obvious to 2026’s multi-faceted and very busy women everywhere, but, on reflection, must’ve felt wonderfully radical at the time. Fast-forward a quarter century and the French couturier was preparing to unveil the 2.55, an updated version of her first shoulder-strap bag, which quickly earned its place in the pantheon of design-defining handbags (other greats include, in my eyes at least, the Hermès Birkin, the Fendi Baguette and the Gucci Jackie).

The 2.55 concealed a myriad secrets (despite its size, there are seven pockets, including an eternal one intended solely for love letters) and was inspired by an eclectic range of influences, including the Mona Lisa, boat anchors and… the quilted fabric of Coco’s horsey boyfriend’s puffy jackets and their horses’ saddle blankets. It was to this criss-cross motif, or matelassé, to give it its proper name, that the French maison turned towards when it came to designing the first Coco Crush collection in 2015. Initially made up of 18-carat yellow, white and beige gold wide and thin rings and cuff bracelets with engraved incisions, Coco Crush has since embraced earrings, necklaces and ear cuffs — occasionally dusted in diamonds. The beige gold, which I’m told took the House of Chanel three years to develop (quite how they did it is a sworn secret), is a homage to Gabrielle’s unabashed love for the colour (her bedroom was painted beige), which reportedly reminded her of the wet sand on Deauville Beach.

The most recent standout piece is the ‘Supple’ necklace — a thrilling feat of jewellery engineering, as seen around Lily Allen’s throat at the aforementioned party. The ergonomic design means that the jewellery looks like a solid choker, but is in fact flexible and able to mould itself effortlessly to the wearer’s neck. A sliding clasp allows the wearer to change the length at will depending on mood and outfit.

‘I love the Coco Crush [jewellery] particularly because it’s quiet luxury,’ says Leila who has an asymmetric earring cuff that works on both pierced and unpierced ears and can be worn on the earlobe or the top of the ear. She was introduced to the world of Chanel by her mother and grandmother, and the very first piece she purchased for herself was a classic, quilted leather bag with gold hardware from Selfridges, using money saved up from a weekend shopkeeping job. ‘You can wear it [Coco Crush] from day to night. It’s not loud — unlike a lot of fashion jewellery that have a defined logo.’

I rarely bet on the horses, but I’d happily put money on Gabrielle Chanel approving of Chanel’s continued appeal to the modern woman and the jewellery’s purposeful design. Jewellery that might not even exist were it not for a certain Parisian polo player and his beloved steeds.