The 2000s Chanel Pink Resin Pendant: Costume Jewellery and the CC

Gabrielle Chanel made costume jewellery respectable. She wore imitation jewels openly and treated them as part of the design of an outfit rather than as a substitute for wealth. This necklace, a square pendant of pink and ivory resin with the interlocking CC on a gold-tone snake chain, belongs to the long line of Chanel costume jewellery that followed.

Chanel and costume jewellery

Encyclopaedia Britannica notes Chanel's role in popularising costume jewellery alongside her other innovations, from jersey dresses to the little black dress.

After her death in 1971, the house went through more than a decade of uncertainty. In 1983 Karl Lagerfeld was appointed artistic director, a position he held until his death in 2019. Under Lagerfeld the house's codes, among them the interlocking CC, were taken up again and reworked, on clothes, bags and costume jewellery alike.

Resin and the logo

The pendant is made of smooth resin in pink and ivory, set in a square form with the CC logo. Resin is a light, colourful material that allows strong shapes and even surfaces, and it suits the graphic clarity of the Chanel monogram. The gold-tone snake chain, flat and flexible, lies close against the neck and catches the light along its length.

A hanging Chanel logo and tag record the piece's origin. According to the listing, the tag describes it as a piece of 1993 to 2000 from a spring collection, made in France.

The object

The Archivary describes the necklace as a Chanel pendant with a smooth pink and ivory square resin pendant and CC logo, a gold-tone snake chain and its original hook fastening. It is 27.5 inches long, about 70 centimetres. The condition is recorded honestly: the piece has been worn and shows very minor signs of wear, and the resin has slight marks, shown in the photographs, while the fastening and chain are in excellent condition.