The LVMH-Owned Jeweler Crafted Medals That Incorporate a Piece of the Eiffel Tower
Chaumet, the jewelry house owned by the 2024 Olympic Game’s partner LVMH, has unveiled the medals for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris. In addition to the traditional gold, silver, or bronze, each model is crafted with a real piece of the Eiffel Tower recovered during one of the monument’s historic restorations.
“To ensure these medals would truly bear the signature of Paris 2024, we married the strongest symbol of the Games, the medal, with the absolute signifier of Paris and France in the entire world, the Eiffel Tower,” said Tony Estanguet, president of Paris 2024.
Incorporating a piece of the Parisian monument was part of the brief given to Chaumet by the Olympic Athletes’ Committee. Chaumet is the first jewelry house to be commissioned to design Olympic medals.
The reverse side of each of the 5,084 Olympic and Paralympic medals set to be awarded is set with an 18-gram hexagonal plaque made of iron used for the Eiffel Tower in 1889 and collected during its renovation. The hexagonal design was drawn from the house’s archives, where research also uncovered a meaningful connection: an order book that revealed Gustave Eiffel was a client of the Place Vendôme jeweler.
The Paralympic medals also include an inscription representing the Eiffel Tower as seen from underneath, as well as the inscription “Paris 2024” in universal braille in a nod to its inventor, Frenchman Louis Braille.