Chanel: fresh French elegance

Chanel’s latest collection was all about cool French elegance, balmy days in Provence, languid lunches at beach bars and shopping in Saint-Tropez.

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Its leitmotif was the famous Villa de Noailles in Hyères, a work of modernist architecture that has become an iconic place for fashion lovers. A space where artists, directors and writers played and dreamed in the 1920s, when sports first became fashionable for the general public and intellectuals.

The result is a super summer collection full of energy and joy of life. Easy to understand and wear, the line once again changes Chanel’s target market, making them look a couple of years younger.

The invitation set the stage. It featured a photograph of Inez and Vinoodh with Dutch model Rihanna Van Rompaey posing in front of one of the villa’s unique windows overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The photo was taken in May, so Rihanna was only wearing a black swimsuit, because the collection had not yet been created.

The same view, but in color, became the backdrop for a show mixed with flowers and petals, enlarged to the size of a bungalow, staged at the Grand Palais Ephemeral.

Models appeared on the catwalk wearing pleated dresses and hippie-style blouses paired with plaid blazers. And super-light bouclé kaftans that are easy to put on and take off. Elegant culottes and shorts that can be worn with crystal embroidered tops; or wedges with double CC logo.

The brand’s creative director, Virginie Viard, even showed off distressed jeans and denim tunics never before seen at Chanel, with pearl belts. Her cleverest trick was boucle skirts with uneven wraps, one side of which was three inches lower than the other.

Almost all the girls wore flat shoes: slippers with rhinestones, slides with a logo, or pearl-encrusted shoes with black ribbon bows. Except for the evening, when Viard took advantage of the current sheer trend with a quintet of beautiful dresses. negligee in black chiffon paired with arctic blue high-heeled knee-high boots. The length varies from mid-thigh to just above the knee.

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Then go psychedelic with crazy floral patterns on pantsuits, blazers and pleated skirts, hinting at the carefree nature of the Villa de Noailles in its glory days, when artists of the caliber of Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dali, Piet Mondrian and Giacometti were all having fun there.

“What I love about the villa is that it’s not a huge monument, but an intimate place where you feel a certain magic,” Viard explained backstage, where Penélope Cruz, Usher, Nicky and Paris Hilton praised the designer. One of the most restrained egos in his self-absorbed profession, he received acclaim for a special collection shown on the last day of Paris Fashion Week.

Little is known about Coco Chanel’s relationship with Marie-Laure de Noailles, although there is a photo of the two of them with a group of intellectuals at a black tie party, where Coco looks radiant in a beanie.

Today the villa is a center for contemporary art and home to the famous Hyères Festival, whose prize for young designers is the most coveted in European fashion. One of the largest sponsors is the fashion house Chanel.

“Above all, I wanted this collection to have a feeling of fun and lightness, a feeling of being transported from the beach to the bar, enjoying life,” enthused Viard, who bowed in charcoal bouclé trousers and a black T-shirt. with the ironic inscription “Restless glamour”.