Virginie Viard Unveils Chanel’s New Cruise Collection With A Virtual Show

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Under a blood-red sunset, figures are outlined, wearing dark clothes with patches of gilding against sun-kissed skin.

“For me, it was the sentiment of the south of France or Capri, where we had planned to show. It’s about the whole Mediterranean area: everything light and practical, with no grand gowns,” says Virginie Viard, artistic director of Chanel’s fashion collections.

“But we did not shoot the picture on the Côte d’Azur — it’s the landscape of the Mediterranean, but the clothes were photographed in Paris,” explains Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president of fashion activities at Chanel and Chanel SAS.

© Photography by Karim Sadli. Courtesy of Chanel

Like the rest of the world, in lockdown during the pandemic, Chanel is mindful of the situation facing humankind. The anger and despair of black people protesting globally against systemic racism, demanding justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and countless other black people who have died at the hands of the police.

“Chanel has a real posture and a true value — and that value of the brand is not consistent with [racism], either in the US or any country in the world,” Pavlovsky says.

“It is important that in this situation, Chanel can raise its hand and say, ‘This is not the world we want to be in’. It is important to say that [racism] is not acceptable so as a brand, we can condemn it and say very clearly that we are not and do not want to be a part of [racism].”

The executive is, therefore, taking a more sober attitude than ‘the show must go on’ — even though the house is actively working on the current interseason Cruise collection, with the intention to present it the same way online as it will with the July Haute Couture show.

Hoping to keep a delicate balance between a new collection and a new world order after lockdown, Viard took her original idea of Capri and defined the new show as a balade — meaning ‘a stroll’ — around the Mediterranean coastline.

After the designer worked on the collection for just four weeks in May, the result is as light-hearted as the reality is complex. The images show soft tailoring, colourful but mostly dark, with patches of embroidery glittering like a ray of sunlight — or a tanned leg slithering out of a skirt.

© Photography by Karim Sadli. Courtesy of Chanel

How hard was it to produce this sensual serenity?

“We wore masks all day and covered our eyes and the women in the ateliers sat very [far apart] — just one to each table,” Viard explains. “We tried to keep the mannequins as if they were at home and we really produced a minimal collection.

“We refreshed some outfits that were in the boutiques — two or three jackets that had been in a previous Croisière collection, which we changed by showing them with trousers. After all, when you go off on holiday, you take the clothes you know and love, yes?”