Listening Differently: Lessons from Chanel’s Première Sound Watch

Chanel Première Sound with earphones
(Image credit: Courtesy, Chanel)

Nearly a year on from Chanel’s Première Sound Watch 2024 release, I still think about it—not because it was one of the most advanced pieces of fashion tech, or even one of the most talked about—but because it managed something rarer: it made sound feel intimate again.

Luxury is replete with visual codes: monograms, materials, lines, and silhouettes. We’ve been trained to read design with our eyes and hands. But this watch introduced something else. It brought audio into the physical world—not as a feature, but as part of the object’s identity. The headphones weren’t an afterthought. They were built in with intention—not to impress, but to express.

Unlike most wearables, the Première Sound didn’t feel like it was trying to prove anything. Draped around the neck with its leather-and-metal strap, it had the quiet elegance of a necklace—anchored by a watch face and earbuds that looked like they belonged there.

What struck me most wasn’t the return to wired listening (although the nostalgia there was clever), but the restraint. There was no push for digital connectivity. No bright displays or touchscreens. No urge to compete with ‘smart’ devices. It just sat quietly, doing its own thing—with confidence. It felt like Chanel was asking: What does elegance sound like when no one’s watching?

That question stuck with me. It got me thinking about how we treat sound in other luxury objects—handbags, for example. We obsess over the feel of the leather grain, the satisfying click of a clasp, the weight of a bag chain, the stitching so precise it’s barely visible. But what about the sound of all that? The little audio signatures tucked into those interactions?

Chanel Première Sound with earphones
(Image credit: Courtesy, Chanel)

Could sound be treated with the same care we give to texture and scent?

I don’t think we need handbags that play music. (Although let’s be honest—someone’s probably working on it.) But I do think there’s space for quieter, more integrated sonic thinking. I mean the natural, unforced sounds that come from how an object moves and interacts with us. The way a zip glides. The soft creak of leather that’s been carried, held, lived in. Those tiny murmurs of use and wear.

These sounds already exist—we just don’t talk about them much. Not branding in the traditional sense. Just an added layer of presence, crafted with care.
Sound deserves to be designed—not as a gimmick, but as another way of being present. Something you don’t notice right away, but feel long after.
That, to me, is where sound identity becomes meaningful. Not in trying to be heard everywhere—but in knowing exactly when to whisper.

It’s a direction we touched on in our Sound of Luxury edition of amplify — a look at how sound quietly shapes the way we experience luxury, often in ways we don’t immediately notice