Chanel’s new high jewelry collection, Reach for the Stars, resurrects the house’s brief but blazing flirtation with Tinseltown. Like Hollywood itself, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel thrived on fiction—her most cherished invention was that her absent father had sailed to America in search of fortune. The United States became a lodestar for her, beckoning with the prospect of another life. When Chanel finally crossed the Atlantic in 1931, aboard the SS Europa, she brought with her an associate, two assistants, three maids, two models, 15 trunks, and 35 pieces of luggage—a retinue fit for a film star.

Hollywood was waiting. Studio mogul Samuel Goldwyn had offered her $1 million a year to dress his leading ladies, convinced that Chanel’s Parisian modernity would lure women to movie theaters. The des

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