See Margot Robbie’s Chanel High Jewelry Earrings and Necklace in ‘Babylon’

Ideas of Outdated Hollywood may conjure visions of bombshell glamour, decadence (if not comprehensive-on debauchery), glittering diamonds…and Chanel. The French fashion home has a lengthy history with Tinseltown, dating again to the 1930s, when United Artists mogul Sam Goldwyn invited Mademoiselle Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel from Paris to style robes for his Los Angeles starlets, on and off-the-display. In Babylon, Damien Chazelle’s bombastic (not-so-)Golden Age of Hollywood epic, the collaboration continues.

Early in the film, fearless ingénue Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) assuredly marches up to the box workplace for the premiere of her 1926 silent movie debut. The staffer refuses to let the nonetheless-not known talent in, but the resourceful Jersey female bribes her way into the theater irrespective. The digital camera closes in on Nellie’s apprehensive-turned-elated expressions as she awaits the audience’s response to her overall performance. Her facial area and long, undone curls—an surprising design and style for the decade, but primarily based on genuine-lifestyle Hungarian starlet Lya De Putti—are framed by a pair of fantastic deco-model earrings, appropriately christened “Muse,” from the Chanel Higher Jewellery collection.

Through a partnership with the luxury house, costume designer Mary Zophres diligently chosen the white gold earrings—radiant with 26 carats of sapphires and 5 carats of diamonds—to flawlessly accent Nellie’s sparkling milestone event ensemble: a blue hand-beaded halter best and faucet pants established.

“Now she has some money and she’s gonna commit a very little little bit extra,” says Zophres, who received one particular of her a few Oscar nominations for Chazelle’s 2017 hit La La Land. “She needs some thing that is glittery for the reason that she’s still Nellie.”

The actress’s premiere earrings, with triangular diamonds and sapphires organized into star shapes, feels felicitous, and even literal, for her ascendance. They also serve as a cautionary tale for neophyte talent thrust into the spotlight with unprecedented paychecks. “I believe she blows her total wad on a pair of diamonds since she hasn’t experienced money her complete lifetime. She may not have put in it wisely, but she desired anything for herself,” states Zophres, emphasizing the storytelling at the rear of Nellie’s splurge.

The glittering seem is a reference to, but also a departure from, the scarlet pink and pores and skin-baring outfit Nellie wore when she was plucked out of a bacchanalian dance occasion for her big crack. Impressed by a ’20s impression of Asian American actress Anna Might Wong, Zophres imagined Nellie was previously a dancer in New York Metropolis and configured a crimson silk scarf with a pair of shade-coordinated faucet trousers that she probably pilfered from a studio again in the day. She’s appear a prolonged way because then.

At the peak of her silent movie stardom, Nellie is mobbed by admirers and paparazzi in rainy New York Town. Coincidentally, kindred spirit Manny (Diego Calva), former producer’s underling-turned-studio exec, spots Nellie and shields her from the scrum into her chauffeured motor vehicle.

He’s in the metropolis to witness the public response to Al Jolson’s video game-modifying sound musical, The Jazz Singer—a harbinger of the close of silent films. An unusually understated Nellie is there to take a look at her mother, a longtime patient in a mental establishment. In a pristine vintage celadon green cloche hat and matching shawl lapel wrap coat, Nellie is pretty much dressed for the severe East Coast climate—and the emotionally extreme meeting. “That costume was in fact a cocoon for her,” says Zophres. “It’s the only time she wears a hat, and she hardly ever definitely normally takes that coat off. It’s her way to hug herself.”

The costume designer also spotted an opportunity to incorporate an 18K white gold Chanel tasseled lariat, glimmering with 17 carats of paved stones and close-set diamonds. “She could not help herself,” says Zophres, imagining Nellie’s mentality in adorning herself with the stylish, nonetheless opulent accessory. “‘I do not truly want to gown in a [flashy Hollywood] way, but I’m gonna put on my diamonds.’”

Fittingly, the necklace, beautiful with intricate lacework that culminates in a camelia burst, is named for actress Lucienne Roger, who starred in the 1910 Belgian satirical comedy engage in, Le Mariage de Mademoiselle Beulemans (The Marriage of Mademoiselle Beulemans). “It was a lovely piece that felt 1920s to me,” suggests Zophres.

The commonly brash Nellie maintains sartorial decorum and sensitivity, while. Prior to she enters the clinic, she quietly eliminates and relinquishes the necklace to her driver to keep. Immediately after seeing her mom, Nellie stays stripped of the jewels, as she and Manny expose their individual, extended-buried family traumas to each individual other. She then redons the lavish ornament—and her star persona—as she immediately bids Manny adieu with a extensive grin and runs off into the night time. “It was a single of those points that is meticulously put for very specific good reasons that have to do with character progress,” suggests Zophres.

The costume designer also refers to Nellie’s refined, still spectacular—and diamond-accessorized—ensemble as a single of her “Gloria Swanson moments,” which also feels like a reality-meets-fiction crossover. For the duration of her time at United Artists, Mademoiselle Chanel did, in simple fact, design robes for Swanson, notably to engage in an opera diva in 1931’s Tonight or Never. The true-existence screen icon was producing her changeover from silent to seem films, just like Nellie’s impending route in Babylon.