The cruise shows, those amorphous in-between collections that big brands have turned into traveling extravaganzas for very important clients and even more important social content, kicked off on Tuesday with Chanel.
The current hottest brand in the industry, according to the fashion search engine Lyst (which assesses brands according to multiple criteria including intent to buy, social conversation, speed of sell-through and cultural relevance), and the one that set fashion insiders racing into shops during Paris Fashion Week to fight over shoes, Chanel held its show in Biarritz, the French Riviera town where the house was founded in 1915. In the front row were the brand ambassadors ASAP Rocky and Nicole Kidman as well as Tilda Swinton, Sofia Coppola and Michaela Coel; watching onscreen was yours truly. Even through the glow of the computer, certain elements stood out.
The little black dress turned 100.
Coco Chanel is famous as the inventor of the Little Black Dress, which has its centenary this year. Little wonder that Matthieu Blazy, the newish artistic director, seized the moment to offer his spin, in both design and theory.
“It was like the first revenge dress,” Blazy said, calling in from Biarritz. But, for him, the revenge that a Chanel LBD represents is nothing so minor as revenge on a spurned lover; it is revenge on an entire social class. It represents, he said, “taking something from the working class and making all the aristocracy want it.” Little wonder he felt this might be the right moment to bring it back.
The shacket became the new bouclé.
If the LBD was Chanel’s version of workwear, Blazy has embraced his own. Since his second collection, he has treated the shacket, that modern sartorial portmanteau of a jacket and a shirt, as central to the new era of the brand. Along with tweed shackets and three-quarter-zip sweaters, he added a sequined “denim” Canadian tuxedo to the mix.
Logos were reinvented.
Coco Chanel was an early branding genius, one of the first designers to put her initials all over her work so that everyone who wore it advertised herself as part of Chanel’s club. But rather than simply fall into the trap of the double C, Blazy did something smarter: He took the interlocking curves of the letters and transformed them into a semi-baroque design element on suits, dresses and necklines, like a contemporary curlicue. The result felt less logomania, more manifest destiny.
Newsprint took on new meaning.
Physical newspapers may increasingly seem like a thing of the past, but fashion loves nothing more than a revival. So, in a nod to John Galliano’s controversial hobo Dior couture show from 2000 and to Coco herself — who reportedly said “I love to read newspapers, like a man” — Blazy took the idea of newsprint literally, whether in a ball gown or as the lining of a coat. He called those looks “fish and chips.”
There was (maybe) a Met Gala preview.
Ball gowns have not played much of a role in the four collections Mr. Blazy has shown since joining the house, but this time he dipped his toe into the … well, water, with a bias gold gown and two mermaid-themed frocks that seemed destined for next week’s Met Gala steps.
And there was a lot of joy.
Sea horses, sea urchins, coral, flowers of all kinds — they were literally woven into Blazy’s tweeds, which came in all colors and stripes, just like the models on his runway, including one who was six months pregnant (and had a pair of Chanel baby shoes dangling from her handbag). “We had such fun making the collection,” Blazy said. It showed.
Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.
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