The Journey to sustainable luxury

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The Journey to sustainable luxury

Marion Cotillard designs for the Green Carpet Collection by Chopard

The-Journey-to-sustainable-luxury

Marion Cotillard and Caroline Scheufele combine their creativity and their commitment to sustainable luxury through the Green Carpet Collection for which the Oscar award-winning actress and one of the first winners of the Trophée Chopard has designed a one-of-a-kind jewellery piece that will be presented by Chopard at the forthcoming Cannes Film Festival. This creation introduces a new material to the Green Carpet Collection in the form of traceable and sustainably sourced Australian black opals.

Since her performance in La Vie en Rose, which earned her an Oscar for Best Actress, Marion Cotillard has continued her brilliant career, and is sought after by the greatest producers on both sides of the Atlantic. The actress is however also firmly committed to certain causes, having developed an interest in ecology and environmental issues at a very early age.

Well before being internationally renowned, she became involved in saving the planet, particularly via the Greenpeace movement, with which she travelled abroad on several occasions in the role of spokesperson. In this context, Marion Cotillard visited the Congo during the summer of 2010 to denounce the exploitation of the primary tropical forest in Africa.

In February 2015, she was invited by François Hollande to join the Presidential delegation on a visit to Manila on the theme of global warming.

The Journey to Sustainable Luxury

For several years, Chopard has demonstrated its commitment with regards to social responsibility, in particular through its membership of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC), the leading organisation in the establishment of environmental, social and ethical standards. In 2013, determined to further this commitment, Caroline Scheufele joined Livia Firth, artistic director of Eco-Age and founder of the Green Carpet Challenge, in launching The Journey to Sustainable Luxury, which deals with challenges including sourcing which is respectful of the environment and of people, backed by the traceability of raw materials.

2013 saw the production of the first Chopard creations made of Fairmined gold, set with diamonds supplied by certified members of the Responsible Jewellery Council and fulfilling the requirements of the Green Carpet Challenge. Introduced under the Green Carpet Collection label, they were then presented at the Cannes Film Festival and worn for the first time by Marion Cotillard, who showed a keen interest in the approach undertaken by Chopard.

Marion Cotillard for the Green Carpet Collection by Chopard

Since then, Marion Cotillard has worn creations from the Green Carpet Collection on other occasions. The artistic collaboration between Marion Cotillard and Caroline Scheufele, Co-President and Artistic Director of Chopard, was thus a natural extension of these existing affinities.

On the occasion of the 68th Cannes Film Festival, Marion Cotillard has designed a special creation for the Green Carpet capsule collection, which is an integral part of the 2015 Red Carpet Collection: an Art Deco-inspired piece of hand jewellery consisting of a multi-row bracelet made of diamonds and opals connected by a delicate chain also set with opals and diamonds to a ring adorned with a magnificent 8.6cts black opal. Caroline Scheufele and Marion Cotillard are currently working on a second creation, an Art Déco inspired necklace.

Black opals make their first appearance within the Green Carpet collection

In its new Green Carpet collection creations, Chopard has added brilliant depth of colour and iridescence, using lustrous black opals. These unique opals are sourced sustainably from the remote outback of Australia. Chopard is proud to work with the Aurora Gems opal mine, a family-owned business founded in 1962. The Hatcher family at the helm of Aurora manages the mining, polishing and sale of their black opals, without any outsourcing whatsoever, thereby guaranteeing total traceability. The small scale mines worked by the Hatcher family are between about 6 and 25 metres underground down a shaft about a metre across.  With just a mechanical digger, and a blower for removing the dirt, mining is a slow and delicate process with a lot of the intricate removal of the precious opal completed by hand.

 

NOTES:

The Journey

Chopard has made a long-term commitment in the form of The Journey to Sustainable Luxury, the aim of which is to improve the quality of life and environment of people at the start of the production chain, who are all too often overlooked.

The Journey, launched in 2013 in partnership with Eco-Age and its Artistic Director, Livia Firth, began with the establishment of a philanthropic relationship between Chopard and the influential South American NGO, the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM), which is active in the mining sector. Chopard was the first company in the luxury watchmaking and jewellery industry to support mining communities in obtaining Fairmined certification by ensuring social security for them and providing access to education and training while protecting the natural resources and wildlife habitats which they are dependant on.

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