Robert Goossens

Robert Goossens (30 January 1927 – 7 January 2016) was a French jeweller who became known as Monsieur Bijou. The son of a metal foundry worker, he was born in Paris, France. In his younger years, he served an apprenticeship in jewelry making, perfecting the techniques of casting, engraving, and embossing semi-precious and simulated stones into gold and silver metals. In his decades of creating fine jewelry, Goossens mixed the genuine stones with the fakes, a blend of the artificial gems with the semi-precious for clients including Coco Chanel, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Madame Grès, Christian Dior and others.

Design Aesthetic Goossens's designs were heavily influenced by paintings and artifacts in Paris museums, with inspiration most often taken from Maltese, Byzantium, and Renaissance works. Over the years, he traveled extensively, frequently bringing back stones including sapphires, amethysts, rubies, coral, and chalcedony. Concerning rock crystal, after restoring a cross belonging to Madame Chanel, the stone became his favorite material. It is a clear and colorless variety of quartz. Goossens became the first to set it into pieces of jewelry; he felt that its delicate and inexpensive attributes were well suited to costume jewelry. He also utilized bronze, shells, pearls, colored and, as mentioned, natural rock crystal in necklace, brooch, bracelet and earring designs.

Work with the Maison Chanel Starting in 1954 with his creation of the Byzantine style, The Goossens boutique is located in Paris on the avenue George V.

Some of his works are part of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs collections. He died at the age of 88.