Chloe director’s debut gives the pretty fashion house some edge
When Natacha Ramsay-levi was appointed creative director at Chloe this year, she became the first Frenchwoman to helm the Parisian label renowned for its carefree femininity since 1992.
In the intervening years, Karl Lagerfeld and a quartet of Britons – Stella Mccartney and Clare Waightkeller among them – have made Chloe the ultimate destination for feel-good clothes with an innate, womanfriendly ease (which may sound like a no-brainer given this is womenswear, but is not to be taken for granted). Gaby Aghion, Chloe’s founder, instilled these principles in 1952 when her “prêt à porter” concept and luxuriously soft designs offered a revolutionary way for Paris’s intelligentsia to dress.
It was Aghion’s intellectual ideals that 37-year-old Ramsaylevi chose to explore in her debut collection at Paris Fashion Week yesterday. “I want to give women the opportunity to show their inner strength, not their power. That’s the personality of the woman I’m drawn to,” she said.
Where the previous iteration of Chloe was often uncompromisingly bohemian – ads with models twirling through fields in breezy dresses – Ramsay-levi blended this with the harder-edged aesthetic, not only a signature of her mentor Nicolas Ghesquière, the Louis Vuitton designer with whom she worked for years, but of the cool Parisienne look which has been fetishised recently. Arguably, she is its poster woman.
Sequins have been used with glittering abandon this month, but Ramsay-levi reimagined them to create a modern Joan of Arc look; finale dresses with panels of chiffon and chain mail with paillette-scattered ruffles. High-necked Victorian blouses with studded mini skirts, and languid tailoring, often leather, toughened-up lace and ditsy floral prints.
Ultimately, accessories will be where Ramsay-levi’s success is judged. Yesterday, it was jewellery in abstract and talismanic forms and stompy, studded, buckled boots.