Earlier this month, Virginie Viard, the creative director of Chanel, the world’s second largest luxury brand by turnover, left the house. She had been in her position for about five years – since the death of Karl Lagerfeld in 2019, her mentor and the brand’s former designer, with whom she had worked closely for decades.
Although critics (including this one) generally disliked her work, which was clunky and seemed to equate short films with fresh ideas, brand management had always declared their loyalty and revenues continued to rise: almost $20 billion last year. The pause seemed abrupt and unexplained. One week, Ms. Viard showed her cruise collection in Marseille, France; a few weeks later she was gone.
According to Bruno Pavlovsky, the president of fashion at Chanel, Ms. Viard had nothing to do with the couture show held this week. Instead, it was designed, according to a press release, by the ‘Fashion Creation Studio’.
Whether that’s true or not – three weeks is an incredibly fast turnaround time for a handmade collection with 46 looks, even with 150 people working in six studios, as the release stated – the result was even more mediocre than what Ms. Viard had produced. That’s saying something, considering the most memorable feature of her latest couture was that each look was paired with shiny white tights.
And most of all, it revealed why a designer matters, what the real impact of Ms. Viard’s (short) tenure could be, and why the question of who gets the next job has become the hottest topic of conversation. along the runways – even more than complaining about the road closures in preparation for the Olympics or worrying about the upcoming elections in France and the United States.
Because although the venue for the couture show was new – the ornate Opéra Garnier, home of the Paris Opera Ballet, rather than the usual Grand Palais with a glass crown – the clothes looked old.
Officially inspired by the experience of the 19th century theater, which Chanel has long supported, the designs seemed more like a checklist of well-known Karl-isms, minus the Warholian imagination that always dressed up his shows with airplanes and supermarkets, making even his pops into pop -art. So yes, there were glittering bouclé suits with wide knee-length skirts and decorative tassels; flowing taffeta opera capes paired with tiny bodysuits; tutu-like little black dresses; and a few odd forays into what the brand called “lacquered jersey” and fancy sweatpants. There were lots of long puffed sleeves, the kind with a hint of historicism that Mr. Lagerfeld favored, lots of taffeta bows and a wedding dress meringue. It was like Chanel by St. John.
Continuity is all well and good, but when it becomes treading water, it can drag you down.
The problem with both this collection and what Ms. Viard did before is that they did not reflect an important part of Lagerfeld’s legacy. Mr. Lagerfeld himself summed it up when he said: “Chanel is an institution, and you have to treat an institution like a whore – and then you get something from her.”
That’s a blatant statement (it was given to them), but the point Mr. Lagerfeld was making was that he succeeded because he refused to genuflect to the brand’s history. He came in and kicked the double C’s off their pedestal, and the result was electrifying. (It was also what led to Tom Ford at Gucci, John Galliano at Dior and so on.) Someone has to do it again, but this time it does the sacred cow in the form of Lagerfeld.
The opportunity is so enormous — the platform so vast, the resources so deep, brand recognition so tied to ambition and chic, and design vocabulary so endlessly fluid — it was incredibly frustrating to watch Ms. Viard fail to seize it. It almost seemed irresponsible not to take advantage of all those possibilities; a betrayal of the opportunity she had been given, and which, rumor had it, virtually every other designer under the sun desired. That’s partly why the disappointment with her work was so sharp that the reactions often bordered on anger.
After Ms. Viard left, there were some who thought that was where the pile-up came from misogyny, but I don’t think that’s true; I think it was just a reaction to the stagnant nature of her clothing. She had five years to get ahead, which is more than many designers get these days. But every time a collection showed signs of promise, like her latest ready-to-wear with its flowing Croisette silhouettes, the next one went straight back to the gift shop, a head-scratching standard.
(Although I also don’t think it’s true that it was the chorus of criticism on social media that led to her departure. The echo of the fashion room on Instagram and X and TikTok may be loud, but when you’re talking about a multinational , ultimately it’s about moving the product.)
Maybe that’s what Chanel wanted. Perhaps Mrs. Viard had no choice. Chances are that no designer will ever be given the same carte blanche, blank checks and lifetime employment contract as Mr. Lagerfeld. Budgets have shrunk and control has returned to management, and when those changes happen they are very difficult to reverse.
But the current situation suggests that those in power at the brand have at least realized that Ms. Viard has done more to diminish Chanel than most people thought possible.
That may ultimately be her greatest legacy: underscoring the need for a stand. For someone who offers a new idea about women and their place in the world and who and how they want to be. After all, that’s how Chanel started.
There aren’t many brands with the power and influence to create seismic changes in fashion. Chanel is one of them. Let’s hope this is next.
