A thousand and one jackets…
… and a very expensive pair of tights. Lisa Armstrong reports on Chanel’s show
The Grand Palais, that inflated fin‑de‑siècle conservatory flanking the Seine, has been the site of Chanel’s ready-to-wear shows for more than a decade. It’s a very large space that Karl Lagerfeld liked to fill with spectacular sets: over the years, his team recreated a Parisian street, an airport, a rocket launchpad, a desert island beach…
Virginie Viard, his successor, has a different, arguably bolder approach. She called it “emotions without any frills”. This amounted to stripping away all diversions and giving the Instagram bounty hunters nothing but clothes – and a few wisps of dry ice.
Fortunately, there were a lot of clothes. Like Lagerfeld, Viard favours the carpetbomb approach: models breezed down the catwalk, three by three. Sistersin-tweed-chanel-arms, with their gilt-chain shoulder bags swinging, their flared trousers unbuttoned up the side seams and their slashed midi skirts flapping over matching tweed hot-pants.
The idea presumably was, if you don’t like this outfit, another more congenial one will be along in a nano-second.
If the mood was optimistic early women’s lib (by way of a Seventies ad for Revlon’s infamous and wildly successful Charlie perfume), the silhouette veered into Eighties territory. And like the Eighties, this is all quite Marmite: broadshouldered, oversized jackets, pouchy bombers and blouson jackets, cuffed, baggy trousers tucked into two-tone D’artagnan boots, spread collars from the Lady-di-as-nurseryschool-teacher era, vividhued cardigans and chunky, logo-spattered wrist cuffs and necklaces…
You either like this or you don’t, but it looked happy and breezy. “[It’s] freedom, energy, desire for the absolute Gabrielle Chanel – always – whose racehorse was called Romantica,” explained Viard.
For all the swagger, Viard has her subtle moments: scallop-edged skirt and jacket suits, slim tweed coats and a lovely drop-shoulder velvet midi dress. There was plenty of black (as there has been throughout fashion month) and a plethora of separates. The Chanel 2.55 quilted bag, though, came in a spectrum of colours and materials – nothing too gimmicky.
Perhaps the best touch was that small, but unmistakable CC logo on all the sheer tights (one ragged nail and that’s a small fortune in tatters). They’ll be a runaway hit. A micro detail, in an enormous space.