Volumes have been written about Coco Chanel – biographies, articles, dissertations, and film scripts. She has inspired art exhibitions, such as the one at New York’s Metropolitan Museum in 2005 or The Chanel Legend at the Kunstmuseum in The Hague in 2013/14. Now it is the turn of the Victoria &Albert Museum in London to present the work of the brilliant Frenchwoman. https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/gabrielle-chanel-fashion-manifesto
The GABRIELLE CHANEL. FASHION MANIFESTO exhibition opened on 16th September 2023 and can be viewed until 25th February 2024. In theory, because tickets are sold out and can only be obtained from re-sale websites.
The exhibition is arranged in a clear and simple way – in chronological order. It is not an exaggeration to call it a monographic exhibit, as it does not go beyond the work of Coco Chanel herself, but presents it in detail, without omitting any of Mademoiselle’s innovative fashion ideas.
It opens with a beautiful Mariniere Blouse in ivory-coloured silk jersey from the spring/summer 1916 collection, one of the earliest surviving Chanel’s garments, illustrating the designer’s innovative idea to use jersey, previously only found in lingerie, for outerwear. Why? Because it is comfortable and hardly creases. It was comfort and practicality that were Chanel’s priorities.
Next there are the outfits from the 1920s. Over-the-knee dresses with a distinctive low waist, perfectly tailored and often made from high-quality, innovative fabrics produced specifically for Chanel. In 1928 she invested in a textile factory in Asnières and established Tissus Chanel. The factory closed on the outbreak of WWII but was revived after the war and supplied other great couturiers like Balenciaga and Dior. And since the exhibition is hosted at the V&A, special attention is given to Chanel’s connections with Britain, both in business and in personal life. In 1927 she opened a salon in London offering designs for the British clientele. Her interest in sportswear, the use of tweed and knitted jersey is often traced back to her experience of British upper classes country lifestyle Chanel was exposed to while in a relationship first with Arthur Boy Chapel, then with the Duke of Westminster.
One of her less known activities is designing costumes for stage and film. At the V&A you can see photos and original pieces she designed for Diaghilev’s ballet Le Train Bleu in 1924. In 1931 she signed a 1 million dollars contract with Samuel Goldwyn, a Hollywood film producer to design costumes for his films. They were worn by Gloria Swanson, Josan Blondell, and many others.
Then it is time for the famous little black dress and how it came to be. It was an October 1926 edition of American Vogue that announced the outfit The Ford of fashion after the popular American car. Almost a hundred years later it still trendy, still regarded as one the most transformative designs in fashion history. It was revolutionary in its simplicity, versatility and in entirely new approach to black, the colour so far associated with either mourning or hard and dirty work. Chanel on the contrary, made it seductive, sophisticated, and elegant, and it remains such until today.
Chanel’s collaboration with The House of Kitmir might be presently seen as cultural appropriation. I prefer to see it as preserving traditional crafts. In 1922 an embroidery atelier was established in Paris by the Grand Dutchess Maria Pavlovna Romanova, who fled Russia after the 1917 revolution. She employed other Russian emigrees to produce embroidered embellishments based on folk techniques and motifs from Central and Eastern Europe for Parisian couture houses. The V&A presents several beautiful examples of how Chanel incorporated these embroideries in her designs.
Further there are fabulous outfits, mostly evening gown from 1930s, colourful, glittery, sleek, and unbelievably elegant. They mark the end of the first part of the exhibit since Chanel closed her business in 1939 to return after 14 years, in 1953, aged 70 but ready to continue putting her fashion manifesto into practice.
And there it comes – Chanel trimmed tweed suit, another, after the little black dress, signature design. While the first post war fashion collection, The New Look (1947) by Dior was chic but based on conventional hourglass female silhouette, Chanel decided to carry on with her ideas of effortless elegance, comfort, and freedom of movement for modern women in modern world. She was right. 1956 saw the debut of the Chanel tweed suit. Fashion media were at first reserved until the journalist Jean Wiseman wrote: Watch out Mr Dior, Mlle Chanel may be one step ahead of you! Prophetic.
The largest space of the V&A exhibition is dedicated to the famous tweed suits. Big way, the room is two floor high, and it presents the whole variety of Chanel suits you can think of, with different colours, patterns, and fabrics but always the same cut. Some designed as an evening wear, made with opulent, shiny silk brocades and jacquards, often adorned with glittering beads and sequins, like the eveningwear in the 1920s and 30s.
Accessories played a vital part in Chanel’s fashion ideas and so some space is dedicated to fake jewellery Chanel famously used in her designs. She liked working with the famous Parisian goldsmith, Robert Goossens. Both drew their inspiration from antiquity – Roman and Persian empires, ancient Egypt but also from early medieval European art or Baroque. Mademoiselle loved wearing a long string of pearls or shiny chains herself.
Her iconic 2.55 bag, invented in February 1955, hence the name, is another classic and several samples, mostly in black are displayed in the V&A. Its prototype first appeared in 1929 and was radically different from anything considered a handbag before. It had a strap that allowed to hang the bag on the shoulder, leaving the hands of the wearer free – an idea inspired by soldiers’ bag. The 1955 version hasn’t changed much until today, it is a luxury item, comes in different sizes and colours and costs up to 7000 Euros.
Chanel’s final collection was presented on 26th January 1971, two weeks after her death. Casual but elegant, could be the answer to the modern woman’s dilemma – commented fashion writer, Alison Adurgham.
Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto is not only about presenting beautiful outfits but highlights issues that are easily overlooked when studying Coco Chanel solely as the creator of a luxury brand. An orphaned girl from an impoverished background, never married, made it to be a fashion icon, financially independent, successful business owner in men dominated society. A lot of fashion historians argue that the experience of poverty links with her creative and most innovative fashion ideas – the use of jersey fabrics for outer clothing, introducing black as the chicest colour, use of fake jewellery, borrowing elements of men’s fashion and using them in women’s clothing, wearing natural suntan with pride and joy as a sign of an active, sporty lifestyle.
And it is not a story about a Cinderella who made it to the top with a stroke of luck. It is a story about a woman who had strength, passion, talent, and most of all – a vision of where the modern world takes us and how to dress for it.
