The History of Coco and the Chanel Diamond in Under 4 Minutes

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Here at Racked, we're dedicating this week to the kind of fantastical shopping that most of us only get to experience in dreams (or at 80%-off sample sales, which are generally somewhat less than posh.) Taking a page from casino parlance, we'll be talking a lot about "whales," those big spenders who feel perfectly comfortable dropping tens of thousands of dollars every night on roulette, or, in our case, on Cartier. Welcome to Whale Week 2013.

Inside Chanel launched back in October, but this week of all weeks—the week of the Whale—the site released a recap of the couture house's relationship with the most covetable of all shiny, expensive things: Diamonds. Enjoy the 3:35 minute sprint through Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's historical 1932 collection, the first and only high jewelry collection she created. You'll definitely learn a thing or two. Like that the inspiration for the jewelry's shape. Or French.

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