HIGH STAKES
67 looks, 100-plus seamstresses and a ticking clock—BERNADETTE MORRA goes behind-thescenes at Chanel’s prestigious atelier in Paris to see the Fall 2015 couture collection spring to life.
ABOVE: KARL LAGERFELD FITS RITA ORA
IN CHANEL COUTURE FALL 2015
THE MOST STUNNING THING ABOUT THE CHANEL COUTURE
atelier is the silence.
With less than 48 hours to go before the Fall 2015 couture show, you would expect to see people dashing around with fabrics and trims, spitting terse commands and swilling Red Bull as the Tuesday 10 a.m. deadline creeps ever closer. Mais, non. Here on rue Cambon, in the building Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel moved into in 1921, all is quiet and calm. But there are lots of comings and goings for sure. As I wait to be buzzed in by a pretty Asian woman who looks no more like a security guard than I do, a trio of lanky models in minuscule shorts and designer sport sandals join me. A glass door finally glides open and they climb a winding staircase to their fittings, while I ride the elevator to “Atelier Olivia.” I find Olivia Douchez reigning over the “flou” department, where anything softly constructed or draped is made. “Tailleur,” or tailoring, is downstairs and is where classic Chanel suits have been given a spongy, high-tech look using a 3D laser technique. Each department is run by its own Premier d’Atelier.
Douchez, who is surprisingly young and wears her blonde hair in a loose pony, drifts from work table to work table, answering questions about the 24 looks she and her team are pulling together for this show. She heaves a thick binder onto a table to show me detailed sketches of each design when, suddenly, the phone rings and her mood changes. She is being summoned up to where Karl Lagerfeld is holding fittings. She throws a white lab coat over her peasant blouse and hurries off, leaving me to flip through the binder. Then, just as unexpectedly, she returns because the models aren’t ready. They are having their cheeks rouged and wigs fitted for a full dress rehearsal, known as the accessoirisation. I notice that Douchez’s own accessories include a quilted Chanel pouch on a chain around her neck. It is pierced with pins, the tools of the petites mains, as the women who sew haute couture are called.
“Ask me your most important questions,” Douchez says, since she might be called away again at any moment. We tour the dozen or so work tables and she points out buglebeaded camellias waiting to be attached to a bustier dress that will be Look 61. Look 50, a petrol-hued pleated silk dress and blouse, is still in pieces and dangerously full of straight pins. A cloud of white tulle awaits thousands of crystals—it is the veil that will be worn by Kendall Jenner over a bridal pantsuit.
A flouncy grey tulle number is one of the few dresses that seems anywhere near completion. “Will everything be ready for Tuesday?” I ask, concerned. “Of course!” She and the others around us smile. Between the flou and tailleur ateliers, 100-plus seamstresses work round-the-clock shifts before a show.
Complicating matters this season: »