Since its founding in 1950, Goossens has fostered a dialogue between fashion jewellery, fine jewellery, and art, bringing jewellery and decorative objects to life with equal brilliance. A Maison d’art with unique expertise, Goossens collaborates with the biggest names in Haute Couture whilst developing its own collections.
Here, creation is made up of daring and of encounters: in a playful blend of unexpected shapes and materials, each piece is brought to life by the artisan’s hand, which imbues it with an unrivalled sensitivity.
The savoir-faire of Goossens
Goossens practises cire perdue (lost-wax casting), an age-old technique that allows bronze or brass to be sculpted with extreme precision. Within the workshop, the metal is worked using a range of manual and physical techniques: cast in a mould, sculpted, chiselled, polished, hammered, engraved, gilded, patinated...
The artisans work the material by hand until they achieve the exact desired shade of shine or matte finish, a process that requires constant attention and true mastery of the craft.
The artisans trained within the company thus learn over the years to “feel” the material, under the watchful eye of seasoned experts tasked with passing on their savoir-faire.
From this exchange and this constant quest for experimentation, “good hands” are formed—hands that know how to precisely reproduce and translate the designs and ideas passed on to them, whilst embellishing them with technical prowess where necessary. This slow and demanding teaching method, based on observation as well as repetition, is one of the pillars of Goossens’s philosophy.
From the density of metal to the transparency of rock crystal—another signature of the House—the same exacting standards apply. A luminous stone prized since antiquity for its purity, it demands great delicacy: one must know how to read the crystal’s veins, anticipate its reflections, and respect its fragility.
The Maison also explores another form of light: the more alchemical light of “pâte de verre”. Inherited from an ancient Egyptian technique, it allows colour to be worked into the very depths of the material. Coloured glass powder, slowly melted at high temperatures, transforms into a material with a velvety transparency. Each shade is the result of a skilful blend of pigments and metal oxides.
The history of the Maison
The story begins with Robert Goossens. The son of a foundryman, he trained in the heart of the Marais, a bustling Parisian district which, since the nineteenth century, has lived to the rhythm of hammers and the heat of molten metal escaping from its goldsmith’s workshops.
In 1953, his encounter with Gabrielle Chanel marked a decisive turning point. The designer, fascinated by Robert Goossens’ ability to give materials a look that was both antique and contemporary, entrusted him with the creation of her boldest jewellery. Together, they invented pieces in antique or Byzantine styles, delighting in blurring the lines and playing with the conventions of authenticity and imitation.
Goossens reinterpreted Gabrielle Chanel’s iconic symbols: the cross, lion, sun, star, and feather. To meet ever more demanding creative aspirations, Goossens cultivated a technical expertise, inventiveness, and manual dexterity that feed off one another. From this alliance, a unique style emerged—the Maison’s signature.
In 2005, Goossens joined CHANEL’s Métiers d’art ecosystem. Since 2021, Goossens has been a resident at le19M.
Goossens, The art of metal in the service of interior design
True to its creative philosophy—one that places no limits on either creativity or technique—Goossens goes beyond jewellery to explore the world of interior design. The water lily pedestal table, the coffee table with a wheat sheaf base, and the trio of gilded bronze lions are just a few of the iconic creations that translate the Maison’s aesthetic language into a new realm.
By venturing into the world of decorative arts, Goossens demonstrates the ability to move from the precise scale of jewellery to the monumental scale of furniture and objets d’art, whilst using the same materials and craftsmanship. The creation of these objects requires the collaboration of several trades: founders, gilders, and assemblers work together, furthering a dialogue of expertise.
