Robert Goossens

Robert Goossens (1927-2016) was a Parisian jeweler, goldsmith and designer. In 1950, Goossens founded his goldsmith company in the Marais neighborhood of Paris. Three years later, he began a fruitful cooperation with Gabrielle Chanel, for whom he made jewelry until her death in 1971. Other fashion collaborators included Yves Saint Laurent, Elsa Schiaparelli and Cristóbal Balenciaga.

As part of his collaborations with fashion titans, Goossens developed a unique style that would inform his own practice as a whole: the combination of artistic influences from Greek antiquity and Byzantine material culture with neoclassical elements and precious materials, brought together to create a wide array of pieces defying traditional boundaries between artistic styles. Jewelry, objects, furniture, mirrors, lighting, etc., count amongst the Goossens house’s most emblematic creations and all contribute to the incomparable universe envisioned by the artist.

While the Robert Goossens atelier was bought in 2005 by Chanel, and Robert Goossens himself passed away in 2016, his legacy endured. The Goossens workshop in the north of Paris still operates to this day, employing about 50 people. A number of his creations are in the permanent collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris as well as in private collections worldwide.