Luxury house CHANEL presented their Spring Summer 2022 Haute Couture Collection, that explores an ethereal lightness with suspended, fresh, and feminine looks, at the Grand Palais Éphémère, on January 25th, during the ongoing Paris Fashion Week. The collection features airy silhouettes, delicate embroideries, and precious flowers. Contemporary artist Xavier Veilhan created the visual universe for the show. The decor, that references to the avant-gardes of the 1920s and 1930s, is part landscape, part garden and part open theatre stage, and it integrates both the catwalk and seating reserved for spectators. Composer and friend of the house Sébastien Tellier performed a series of new tracks especially made for the show. The brand’s ambassador and distinguished horsewoman Charlotte Casiraghi opened the show wearing a jacket made of black tweed and sequins.
The idea for the show’s décor came from a longstanding desire to work with Xavier Veilhan. His references to constructivism remind me of those of Karl Lagerfeld. I like this similarity of spirit between us, now and across time. – Virginie Viard.
“This décor, a nod to the aesthetics of Universal Exhibitions, acted as a framework ‘where I felt very free,’ adds Virginie Viard. ‘These geometric shapes made me want contrasts, a great lightness and a lot of freshness: ethereal dresses that float as if suspended. Lots of flounces, fringes, macramé, bright lace, iridescent tweeds, colourful jewelled buttons.’ Femininity too, with a pink tweed jacket with white stripes, straps composed of white braid embroidered with beads or silver chains, two-tone Mary-Janes with heels inspired by the 1920s revisited via the 1980s, and finely geometric embroidery, as if echoing the décor. All of the House of CHANEL’s embroidery partners collaborated on this collection, “one of whose key pieces is a dress entirely embroidered by Lesage with constructivist camellias in black, white and coral beads, worn with a little black jacket”, Virginie Viard points out before concluding: ‘These references also belong to Gabrielle Chanel, of course. It’s like a conversation that crosses time.‘” – From Chanel
