Chanel’s Métiers d’Art show took place earlier today, December 3, in a moment that perfectly married luxury fashion and high art.
The luxury fashion house’s latest collection, which was a major success, debuted at the Château de Chenonceau in France with only one guest in attendance: None other than Twilight star Kristen Stewart. According to WWD, Chanel originally planned on inviting 200 guests to the show as it was creative director Virginie Viard’s first runway outside Paris. However, lockdowns following COVID-19 safety precautions limited the guest list to just one, and given Kristen Stewart's well-documented history with the maison, we can't think of a better fit.
As noted by British Vogue, Viardi designed the collection to pay tribute to the women that the castle once served as home to, including Catherine de’ Medici and Diane de Poitiers. With both influences from the Renaissance and modern culture weaved throughout the collection, the show, overall, was a hit with virtual viewers from within the fashion community. “Showing at the Château de Chenonceau, at the “Château des Dames”, was an obvious choice. It was designed and lived in by women, including Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de’ Medici. It is a castle on a human scale. And Catherine de’ Medici’s emblem was a monogram composed of two intertwined Cs, just like that of Chanel,” Virginie Viard said in a press release.
Additionally, Bruno Pavlovsky, the president of fashion at Chanel, said that destination shows like these may just be the future of runway. “We could have had a large number of guests in the Château de Chenonceau,” he said. “That was the first objective: to come back to the experience and the emotion of these shows. We have no choice this time so we’ll do it differently. We can do many things now, but they will never replace that emotion.”
In the run-up to the show, the legendary house also tapped German photographer Juergen Teller to produce a video teaser and a photographic series spotlighting the castle. Teller also highlighted the collection itself in a series of studio photographs with the models.
As the fashion landscape continues to change drastically through this pandemic, who knows what the future of fashion has in store for the runway. But one thing’s for sure: Chanel nailed this collection, without a doubt.
Check out some of the highlights from the event below:
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