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Roundel runway couture12/11/2023 The symphonic soundtrack, created by Viard’s friend Sébastien Tellier, was set to a video projected on a giant screen as a backdrop to the parade of girls, an impressionistic clip that featured an varied cast including Charlotte Casiraghi and Pharrell Williams. This gently suggested something of the art deco flavor to the drop-waisted dresses and linear shapes that appeared in some looks in the collection (and included an eye popping Taroni silk that Viard paired with a stylish bolero in stripes of black and white sequins and bugle beads). Guests walked through or around these structures before moving indoors to more sand and a set of kinetic color blocks in black, white, sand yellow, and gray. This time, Veilhan built a series of structures that formed a symbolic landscape (arches, bullseye targets, mobiles, cubes of bubblegum pink recycled plastics) in the sandy outdoor stadium of the equestrian L’Étrier de Paris center in the Bois de Boulogne. To set the scene, Viard reached out again to the artist Xavier Veilhan who created a Constructivist set for the spring couture collection. That Astaire flare, for instance, might translate into the kick at the hem of a calf length skirt, the Oakley image into a dirndl skirt with practical pockets that encourage a certain assertive body language (and perhaps those sturdy short gaucho riding boots), the ’30s house archive references into slinky evening dresses deftly cut to fall straight to the floor when standing still, but that break into swirling movement below the knee when the wearer walks. Not for Viard the sweeping statements of her mentor Karl Lagerfeld, who might impose a powerful new silhouette on practically every look in a collection, but instead a sense of gentle evolution and a myriad of references and inspiration sparks that might range (as in this collection) from a blinding memory of Inès de Fressange dressed by Lagerfeld in a jacket of bright grass green and shocking pink (for a 1988 Chanel couture show, when Viard first joined the house), to a shot of Fred Astaire in cinematic action, the tails of his white tie evening coat caught flaring out in mid-dance move, to a 19th century shot of a real-life Annie Oakley, to archive Chanel references from slouchy 1920s day suits to slithery 1930s gowns to prim 1960s tailoring, to Lagerfeld’s vividly impressionistic sketches from the 2000s. A platform for a soaring imagination or a response to the zeitgeist perhaps, or a showcase for the technical artistry of the ateliers and the fournisseurs who supply those ateliers with extraordinary textiles, accessories, and embellishments.įor Chanel’s Artistic Director Virginie Viard, her collections reflect the pragmatic needs and desires of the house’s clients and her own eclectic but never fantastical sources of inspiration. As this week has already shown, and with some influential names still to present, haute couture can mean very different things to different designers.
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