Chanel Gondola Ski Lift Minaudière Fuchsia Resin Strass Silver Hardware

A structured resin minaudière in the shape of an Alpine ski gondola, from Chanel's Fall/Winter 2019 "Chanel in the Snow," Karl Lagerfeld's final collection. The Grand Palais was built into a snow-covered Alpine village of twelve chalets for the March 2019 runway, shown weeks after Lagerfeld's passing, with a minute of silence before the show and Penélope Cruz making her catwalk debut carrying a single white rose in the finale.

The gondola is built in two sections. The upper cabin is smooth fuchsia resin scattered with inset strass crystals, set with four frosted resin windows framed in silver-tone metal, etched to simulate finger-drawn marks on fogged glass: a COCO heart on one side, the interlocking CC on the other. The lower half is diamond-quilted fuchsia resin with strass crystals set at the intersections, and a silver-tone band divides the two halves with CHANEL spelled in individual crystals across front and back.

Silver-tone framing runs the vertical seams and each window, a CC emblem at the peak serves as both clasp and attachment point, and miniature skis and poles are mounted on each side. The detachable strap is silver-tone chain laced with fuchsia leather, the interior is lambskin-lined, and it closes on a CC push-lock.

Collector's Insight:
The gondola is the signature novelty minaudière of Lagerfeld's final collection, and its provenance as the last object bag he designed gives it a weight no later Chanel novelty can carry. It appeared on the runway in a small set of colorways, and fuchsia surfaces less often on the secondary market than the black, turquoise, and white variants. The resin body and strass setting are assembled by Chanel's specialist embellishment ateliers, the same craft network behind the house's runway object pieces, which is why these were produced in tiny numbers and allocated through boutiques rather than sold openly.

Resale Insight:
As Lagerfeld's final novelty minaudière, the gondola holds particular standing among Chanel collectors, and condition governs value sharply on resin construction: strass crystals can loosen from their settings, the resin surface takes hairline scratches that cannot be polished out, and the frosted window panels can cloud with micro-scratching. The fuchsia colorway trades less frequently than black or white, and a pristine full-set example with intact crystals and clear windows sits at the top of the available supply for the piece.