Chanel: Back To The Source – With A Modern Twist

The House of Chanel has some big supporters – not just Lily-Rose Depp, sitting front row with her mother, French actress Vanessa Paradis, and fellow actress Kristen Stewart.https://www.instagram.com/p/B5qrxY0nPry/?utm_source=ig_embedLong-time friend of the house, Sofia Coppola, brought her cinematic vision to the set, which was both grand and intimate. Those words also described the models, stepping out in a pretty update of those famous two-tone classic pumps.

As the set brought old and new together, so did the clothes. The general feeling was of lightness and ease, with specifics including a semi-transparent chiffon dress in a gradient of blush pink to sky blue. Such subtleties make the Chanel Métiers d’Art show unique; a different league to the Pre-Fall collections currently on offer from major brands across the world.

It was a true privilege to go backstage to see the extraordinary detail of the handwork, such as a mixture of silvered decoration in different textures and colours, so incredible up-close, but casual from a distance. Perhaps the most extraordinary meld of ancient and modern was a lace dress recreated from a photograph of a pensive Gabrielle Chanel taken by royal photographer Cecil Beaton in 1935.

But there were other details, such as Coco’s sheaves of wheat, symbols of good luck, subtly embroidered onto fabric.

Viard shares with Karl Lagerfeld a desire to stay in the present tense, or even to project the future, never focusing on the past. She is more specifically French than her multi-lingual predecessor, and in this collection it is easier to imagine a young Parisienne – off to a weekend in the mountains in a soft, pale pink trouser suit – rather than an international woman. But there were plenty of work outfits, with touches of the 21st-century power woman in the slither of bare flesh at the waist. Neutral tones (mostly black) gave way to off-beat, mixed-colour tweeds, or curvy, colourful tops.

Since Chanel embraced the traditional Parisian creators of flowers and feathers, embroidery and millinery, the Métiers d’Art shows are designed as their showcase. But Viard admitted back stage that she finds the over-elaboration of grand evening clothes outside her fashion orbit. There is a sense that, like all strong female designers, there is much of herself in her work.

Is Chanel modern? That is a complex question, especially in the context of other fashion houses that have totally changed the spirit and the reality of the clothes shown under a famous name from the past. Balenciaga’s current collections are certainly in that category.https://www.instagram.com/p/B5qW3s4ntPZ/?utm_source=ig_embedAmanda Harlech, a free spirit at Karl Lagerfeld’s side for the last two decades, described the current change as very much like the Sofia Coppola set – a ghost of Coco, but the furniture has changed.https://www.instagram.com/p/B5qWsg4H2QB/?utm_source=ig_embed“The spirit is the same but the clothes are different,” Harlech said. “Karl could never do this because he could not go back to what he did when he first started. But Virginie shows why we love Chanel – for being a woman and a brilliant editor of what women want to wear. Coco took away the pretentious, and that was her genius. Her archive pieces are so far ahead you can keep going back to her.”

There is a different argument, that Virginie is only reinterpreting for the umpteenth time what Chanel offered in the past. Her vision is conventional, but so beautifully executed and thought through. Backstage, I also found, when lifting a tweed jacket or examining embroidery, how light these apparently conventional clothes were.https://www.instagram.com/p/B5qV3sSngd8/?utm_source=ig_embedWith the models lined up on the stairs at the finale, the wardrobe seemed totally and accurately 21st century. “I have completely absorbed the Chanel codes,” Viard said. “I saw Karl twist them so much. I have grown up here. I am a child of Karl and Gabrielle.”