“Complacency,” designer Karl Lagerfeld once said, “is the beginning of the end.”
Three months after his death, this spirit lives on at Chanel. The house has sprung out of mourning and back into action, transforming the Grand Palais in Paris into a Belle Époque railway station for the first collection by Lagerfeld’s successor, Virginie Viard.
The show upheld Lagerfeld’s proud tradition of Chanel catwalk blockbusters. A grand station cafe bedecked with full art nouveau regalia, from curlicued brass luggage racks to polished silver coffee pots, and with the double-C logo embossed onto everything from carpets to station clocks, served breakfast to 500 guests before the first show, and lunch to the same number before the second.
After dining, the audience took their seats on wooden benches lining the long platform installed as a catwalk, to await Viard’s debut.
The Grand Palais, with the grace and grandeur of its soaring Beaux-Arts curves, needs little dressing to pass for a railway station in the classic style of Grand Central in New York or the Gare d’Orsay in Paris.
As a result, in contrast to the boxed-in sets installed when Lagerfeld turned the Grand Palais into an aeroplane cabin or a casino, the entire cavernous space was open to view. It made for an intimidating setting for what was, even after 30 years at the highest level in fashion, Viard’s debut as a solo fashion designer.
There are fewer of the novelty-themed handbags and other visual jokes which Lagerfeld adored, and more of the clean lines and minimalist looks which Coco Chanel – who proclaimed one should look in the mirror to remove one accessory before leaving the house – preferred.
Half of the first six looks in this collection featured wide-legged cotton trousers and matching jackets, the other half trench coats. There were nods to Coco’s beloved Breton tops in the body-skimming striped knit sweaters, and to the era of her youth in the simple pale silk evening dresses with apron-style 1920s necklines.
A high starched white collar had become an optic shorthand for Lagerfeld, and was used as a homage here several times, including in the final look. There was continuity in yet another reinvention of the two-toned shoe – a trick Lagerfeld never missed – which this season became a graphic white-and-black bootee.
A middle section riffed on Chanel in its late 1980s pomp, with a hipster touch of that era’s Princess Diana thrown in for good measure: think bibbed collared blouses, a fabulous leather boiler suit, a fuchsia tweed jacket worn with leggings and heels. These styles were very much in the same groove as Lagerfeld’s final collections.
As she took her bow, Viard did not give the impression of relishing the spotlight. Her all-black ensemble of jeans, loose jacket, T-shirt and boots projected a behind-the-scenes mood that was in sharp contrast to the pompadoured showmanship of Lagerfeld.
But Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president of fashion, gave her his full backing, insisting that hers was not just a placeholder appointment.
“Virginie is doing an amazing job, and she will be here for a long time,” he said before the show. “Perhaps not 30 years, but a long time. When you are number two to Karl, you are invisible, but like Karl she has capacity to intuit new trends, to understand l’air du temps [the times] as well as she understands Chanel.”
Pavlovsky described the mood at Chanel as “smiling”. “There is still a lot of emotion here about Karl, no doubt. But there is also some new freedom, if I may say so.” He confirmed that a memorial service for Lagerfeld would be held on 20 June in the Grand Palais. “It will not be about Chanel or about Fendi; it will be about Karl. The brands are working together, to celebrate him.”
Perhaps the only person at Friday morning’s show who could claim to have met Coco Chanel herself was the actor Ali MacGraw, who assisted as a stylist at Chanel’s Rue Cambon apartment in the early 1960s.
“She was absolutely terrifying. The models looked absolutely perfect to me, but Mademoiselle Chanel would take one look, and start chopping hems and cutting off sleeves with the scissors she kept on a grosgrain ribbon around her neck,” MacGraw said.
She praised Viard for an “amazing” debut, which she felt “referred so strongly to the essential Chanel spirit. It was very different from what came before – fantastically wearable. I loved it.”
Last June, Chanel released financial figures for 2017 which showed a rise in sales of 11% to $9.6bn, with profits of $2.7bn. “2018 was a good year for us,” Pavlovsky said. “I am pleased with the results. You will see them in a few weeks’ time.”
Chanel, which is paying €25m for a renovation of the Grand Palais, will also contribute to the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Mindful of the controversy over lavish donations to the Notre Dame fund, Pavlovsky declined to give a figure.
“It will not be about how many tens of millions we pay. Chanel is about the savoir-faire of Paris. Our contribution will be about helping to train the craftsmen who are needed to restore Notre Dame and ensure Paris continues to be the best city in the world.”
