The luxury fashion house also calls time on extravagant fashion shows
Chanel may be about to bring down the curtain on its ultra-spectacular Paris fashion shows, its new designer Virginie Viard hinted on Monday, as the French brand revealed its first collection since the coronavirus crisis. Extravagant, hugely theatrical shows on enormous sets inside the French capital's Grand Palais became synonymous with the luxury label during the long reign of German designer Karl Lagerfeld, who died last year.
But his discreet successor Viard, the Kaiser's longtime righthand woman, said recreating almost life-sized space rockets, jumbo jets, river gorges, Eiffel Towers and even complete Alpine villages with snow and ski slopes was not her thing.
On Monday, June 8, the rue Cambon fashion house unveiled the silhouettes of its Cruise 2021 collection, which had initially been scheduled to show in Capri on May 7. Christened "Balade en Méditerranée" (A trip around the Mediterranean), this first post-health crisis collection drew inspiration from legendary actresses of the 1960s, who nonchalantly took advantage of the Riviera sun with simple, light, chic and casual clothes, which, like long skirts that can also be worn as bustier dresses, were at times multi-functional.
"Initially I had Capri in mind, where the show was supposed to take place, but didn't happen in the end because of lockdown. So we had to adapt: not only did we decide to use fabrics that we already had, but the collection, more generally, evolved towards a trip around the Mediterranean... The islands, the scent of the eucalyptus, the pink shades of the bougainvillea," explained designer Viard in a press release.