"It was when I rediscovered these portraits of Gabrielle Chanel dressed up in black or white 1880s-style dresses, that I immediately thought about tableaux," explains Virginie Viard. Indeed, painting was the essence of this Couture collection, resulting in impressionist-inspired dresses, skirts that look like paintings and a long white satin dress ornamented with black bows like Berthe Morisot’s.
After displaying the exhibition dedicated to Gabrielle Chanel – which is still running, the Parisian fashion museum Palais Galliera hosted this colorful show, reflecting Viard’s love to see “color in the greyness of winter”. Besides the multicolored tweed jacket and A-line skirt worn by actress and ambassador of the House Margaret Qualley over a bustier in pink broderie anglaise as seen in the pictures of Mikael Jansson and the film of Sofia Coppola, colors casted their charm on many other creations. Think a sequined tweed coat that seems to be made up of paint strokes like an Impressionist painting, and blouses embroidered with mauve and pink sequined motifs or with little red, blue and yellow daisies on a black background tucked into low-waisted skirts in multicolor striped tweed – to name a few.
If this collection wasn’t a picture of a French-style English garden where masculine and feminine meet the quintessential CHANEL way, we don’t know what is!
