As you enter Coco Chanel’s perfectly preserved apartment at rue Cambon, one of the first things you see is a lacquered 19th Century Coromandel screen, inlaid with mother of pearl, depicting the pagodas and pines of West Lake in Hangzhou. This misty, romantic setting – now UNESCO protected – was the scene for Chanel’s metiers d’art collection, presented at dusk on Tuesday to an audience that included 600 HNW clients plus Tilda Swinton and Lupita Nyong’o, all transported by barge to a catwalk suspended over serene waters. Though Chanel herself never visited China, the country fuelled her imagination and still has significance to the brand – aside from those all-important clients, Hangzhou is at the heart of the silk trade and Chanel buys much of this material here.
It says everything about Chanel that they don’t need a creative director to put on an exceptional, memorable mega-show. Karl Lagerfeld’s successor Virginie Viard left six months ago and though a new designer is expected to be announced imminently – all we know is that Bruno Pavlovsky, the house’s president of fashion, revealed last week that it would be “someone who works in service to the brand rather than to themselves” – the talented but anonymous studio team executed this celebration of savoir faire. Metiers d’art is an annual show put on to highlight the expertise of 12 artisanal workshops now owned by Chanel, including the embroiderer Lesage and the milliner Maison Michel. The collection made much of extraordinary craftsmanship, seamlessly uniting Parisian codes with details from local culture.
There was opulence and glamour – tweeds were decorated with birds and blossoms, while featherlight silks were fan-pleated and patent leather shone like lacquer. There was intricate embroidery, fluttering feathers and bags upon bags, dripping with gold embellishments. There was also perfect tailoring, hand-knitted cashmere and sumptuous velvets. Despite the excess, it somehow also felt cool, youthful and desirable. On this showing, the new creative director – whenever someone finally wins the most coveted role in fashion – finds themselves with a hard act to follow.
