Just Because Chanel Crafts Watch-Inspired Trophies For The 2027 Chanel J12 Boat Race

The Boat Race is something of a British institution. The straightforwardly named competition, an annual set of rowing races between the Cambridge University Boat Club and the Oxford University Boat Club on the River Thames, has been running for almost 200 years and is surprisingly one of the UK’s most-watched sporting events, with over a quarter-million spectators lining the Thames’ banks every year and as many as 15 million tuning in on television. It’s upper-crust, it’s historic, and it’s quintessentially British.

2027 will be Chanel's third year as The Boat Race’s title sponsor and official timekeeping partner. The Chanel J12 Boat Race, as it’s now called (named after Chanel’s enormously popular J12 luxe-sports watch), is the first and only sporting event Chanel supports since the French house was founded in 1910. 2027 is also a year of two milestones: it’s the centenary of the first Women’s Race in 1927, and it will also feature the first-ever sporting trophies created by Chanel.

Why are we talking about a rowing race and trophies on Hodinkee? Well, it’s because these trophies have been designed by Arnaud Chastaingt, the director of Chanel’s Watchmaking Creation Studio, and have been deeply and explicitly informed by Chanel’s increasingly mature horological artistry. Basically, they ask the question: what does it look like when a high-end watchmaker (and world-renowned jeweller and fashion house) makes a sporting trophy?

The answer that Chanel and Chastaingt have responded with takes the form of a pair of extremely shapely cups handcrafted by British silversmith Thomas Lyte that feel both traditional and contemporary all at once. Hand-hammered and engine-turned (with the stem of the trophy evoking a watchmaker’s lathe in motion, to my eyes at least), each silver cup is rimmed with black outlines and sits within a rectangular frame: a polished white with matte black lines for the Women’s trophy, and polished black with matte black lines for the Men’s trophy.

It’s a striking look, creating a sort of forced perspective or trompe-l'œil effect – techniques Chanel has long experimented with in its couture and watchmaking. Of course, these colours and finishes also reflect Chanel’s signature colours, and echo the iconic black and white palette of the J12.

The rectangular frame also serves a practical purpose, as they make it easy for the winners to lift these trophies after a hard, soaking slog down the Thames. As Chanel puts it, they want to “enable the winners’ maximum comfort in the moment of the victory showcase”. Thoughtful.

“I was humbled and honoured to lead the creation of trophies for the winners of this momentous race,” Chastaingt adds. “The ambition was to preserve the trophy’s symbolism as a beacon of victory, while reinterpreting and refining it for today. My guiding principle was to illustrate the relationship between Chanel and The Boat Race through its design, to have Chanel’s presence felt without overshadowing the significance of either the trophy or the race.”

2027 is also the first time that the Men’s and Women’s trophies will be the same size, a subtle but meaningful symbol of gender equality. The 2025 edition of The Boat Race actually ranked as one of the most-watched female sporting events in the UK, with viewership outperforming Formula 1 Grands Prix and The Masters. Fitting for a house like Chanel to be involved, then, considering how its trailblazing founder, Gabrielle Chanel, made her fame through introducing masculine design codes within female fashion to define a new, more equal conception of gender.

Of course, the Chanel J12 has always had an immediate nautical connection. First released in 1999 and designed by Jacques Hélleu, Chanel’s artistic director for more than four decades, the J12’s name refers to the elite J-Class racing yachts that historically competed in prestigious ocean regattas like the America's Cup. J-Class yachts no longer duke it out on the high seas, but The Boat Race and its ‘Blue Boats’ are still going strong. I wonder if any of the rowers will also wear a J12 Bleu as they lift these horologically-inspired trophies…

The Chanel J12 Boat Race will be held on Sunday, 11 April 2027. Find out more here.