Kyoto is a city of contrasts. Temples dot nearly every street – but then so do contemporary cafes and luxury stores. Geishas walk the neighbourhoods, as do the hordes of tourists who find Japan so alluring they number 36 million a year. And while ancient crafts like furoshiki (the art of wrapping with fabric) and origami are still practised, there is a deep reverence in Japanese culture for technology. Want someone’s number? Use the QR code on their phone to get it instantly – a technique I had never seen before my trip to Japan’s former capital.

So it is, too, with Chanel’s latest high jewellery collection, Reach for the Stars, which fittingly debuted in Kyoto this month. While the initial 67-piece range has all the glamour you’d expect of the premium jewellery offering from France’s most famous fashion house, one particular set of pieces samples from Kyoto’s own traditional craft techniques – in perfect contrast to the rest of the jewels, which drip with diamonds in exactly the way you’d expect them to (with price tags that can, I’m told, head north of €13 million).