Intro
In exactly the same way that the biggest car companies like to flex their creative muscles and show off their expertise through the creation of concept cars, the world’s most influential fashion houses use haute couture as a statement of strength and technical ability. You could say it’s their way of showcasing their most outrageous ideas, where budget is no limit to ambition. Yet, Chanel’s latest creative director, Virginie Viard, who succeeded Karl Lagerfeld in 2019 (after having spent three decades as his protégée) clearly believes haute couture can still be about making real clothes for real women in a delightful version of modern life. Her collections aren’t fantasy, even if she knows full well how to conjure up the magic of the couture ateliers to make pieces that pique the imagination. Case in point, Look 20 from the Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture show, revealed back in January. It’s a black crêpe de chine silk maxi dress with a multi-coloured flower print. But, over each of these flowers, Chanel’s exceptional artisans have embroidered a three-dimensional flourish using a painstaking method of marquetry using dyed goose feathers. They then took black and white goose feathers and delicately placed them around the coloured flowers like a ribbon to provide relief for each of the 300 blossoms. And finally, the centres of the flowers were embellished with 3,500 little pierced shards and hand-stitched individually by needle.
Despite the many manhours it must have taken to craft such a delightful piece, the dress exemplifies Virginie Viard’s greatest asset: her commitment to understated elegance. “The clothes remain light, feminine, designed to be worn,” she explained after the show. “I can’t see myself doing it any other way.” A – a
