Virginie Viard has made Gabrielle Chanel’s past a chic and spiritual echo.
Who was Mademoiselle Chanel?
Virginie Viard wound up the thread, drew on the origins of Coco’s creativity, the purpose of her Haute Couture 2020 collection. As a child, Gabrielle Chanel, with her sisters, was dropped off by their father. The Abbey of Aubazine was the nerve center of the fashion of the future Coco Chanel. In addition to learning sewing, she rubs shoulders with the austerity of the sisters, the geometric term specific to abbeys, their soil, their stained glass. Where Chanel drew, once at the controls of her house, her legendary double C, her geometric grammar, and her stripped fashion.
We then find throughout this collection having paraded in an almost perfect reproduction of the abbey garden, all the term of Rue Cambon. Black and white. The austere but highly stylized silhouettes.
But also and above all, graphic patterns, once again inspired by stained glass – covered with matte and pastel glitter, this time! Because to the original language of Gabrielle, Virginie Viard added the touch of highly virtuoso houses which now belong to the group.
The house of Lesage has thus worked all the graceful lightness of this silhouette around a large cape of ivory taffeta on a navy blue taffeta dress – tiered in crepe and enhanced with a trompe-l’oeil belt entirely embroidered with sequins by the talents Lesage.
The Tweed Suit And The Chanel Bride
Last achievement of the seamstress, in 1954, the iconic tweed tailor who dressed the great Ladies, like Jackie Kennedy; this same tailor is now reworked in an icy beige. Closed with jewelry buttons set with stars or flowers – other grammars dear to Mademoiselle since Aubazine – it comes with a high or folded collar. Its beige tweed flirts with the country spirit, highlighted or not with fine braided cords.
The final grade? The Chanel bride, very simple, clearly echoes the monastic strictness of the abbesses – a bride in a Georgette crepe dress enhanced with a triple Claudine collar in tulle. Complete with a veil embroidered with wisteria branches; ultimate echo of Aubazine’s garden. Simplified but highly subtle – all the chic Chanel in short.
