The weather seemed Scottish, while the atmosphere was very cool at Chanel's latest Le Corbusier-inspired cruise show presented on Thursday in Marseille.
“We started in the nursery and ended in one too,” smiled Chanel's creative director Virginie Viard, standing after the show in a children's school on the roof of this remarkable building.
Le Corbusier once described his most famous structure as a “factory for living.” It is an era-defining building, designed like an ocean liner and with most activities in the middle of the third and fourth floors. With a nursery and rooftop pool, with its iconic wavy ventilation chimneys. A seductive space that offers 360-degree views over the city.
A perfect location for a collection of cruisers, even on a wild and windy day, where the seagulls were visibly struggling to even stay aloft.
Viard used naive, childlike doodle drawings on charming nightgowns, blouses and skillful embroidery in the opening looks of this show.
Le Corbusier's ideas were evoked throughout this collection. Where the young cast braved the elements and the rain gods thankfully stopped the downpour during the 20-minute show. Even if the wind literally blew the quilted Chanel bags off her shoulders.
A collection that celebrated the erratic graphic patterns of Corbu's building: balconies, sunscreens and lobby windows appearing on classic black and white bouclé suits with a classic twist or schematic printed dresses.
Adding a sense of humor, with designs that selected the images of the packaging of between two wars Marseille and Provencal soaps. Call it savon chic.
Finishing with a large series of cocktails and capes with childish doodle patterns and in a color palette of white, ecru and cream. Remembering that this building was one of the first made of pale concrete, finished in pine motifs.
Backed by Jean-Michel Jarre's classic song Oxygene, the show won prolonged applause, both for the cast esprit de corps As for the coolest clothes.
Most people when they think of French architecture think of Versailles, Notre Dame or the Eiffel Tower. But if you ask any French fashion expert, most would describe Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse as France's most important architectural work of the 20th century.
“I have always been a great admirer of Le Corbusier. Aren't most people? But what I like about this building is that it is not a museum, it is a living and vibrant community,” said Viard, after hugging Charlotte Casiraghi backstage.
Before the show, guests were able to visit the famous apartment building, completed in 1952 to provide accommodation for Marseille residents whose homes had been destroyed in Allied bombing in World War II.
Although still largely made up of private cooperative apartments, the Cité Radieuse also features a mid-century modern hotel; art bookstore; fine art galleries; Purple magazine exhibition space; and a mini retrospective of Viard's favorite independent filmmaker Agnes Varda, whose unconventional photographs and short film about imagining the inner life of a family of seven strangers he filmed atop this apartment building. Mixed with photographs of fishermen, small harbors and rocky coves, which give the region its unique topographical feel.
The Parisian fashion brand even opened its own Radio Chanel, with shows broadcast live before and after its two shows. Where ambassadors like Lily Rose Depp and Caroline de Maigret discussed all things Coco and Viard. She later joined Charlotte Casiraghi in the front row.
The whole week was largely a dialogue between Chanel and Marseille, the bravest city in France whose mean alleys recall the chase scenes in French connection 2.
Like La Galerie du 19M, where artists from Marseille and other artists exchanged with métiers art suppliers owned by the large Chanel group.
Viard was also linked to Ladj Ly, winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes 2019 for Les Miserables. Ly directed a dance film specially commissioned and choreographed by (La)Horde, which featured dancers from the Marseille National Ballet, exploring the iconic sites of this Phoenician city, from the Vieux Port to the Cité Radieuse.
Ultimately though, the collection was about taking Chanel's DNA on a new journey. Changing her codes (the classic suit, the double C, the pearls, the tweed bouclé) in a different and younger way. Corbu and Coco would have understood.
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