4 October 2023 |
The collection was inspired by Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles’ home in Hyères.
After a week of unseasonable warmth in Paris, the day of the Chanel show turned out to be unexpectedly cloudy and rainy. Nevermind the weather outside because inside the Grand Palais Éphémère, it was dry and filled with cheery flowers adorning the screens surrounding the runway. Celebrity guests like Jennie from Blackpink, Usher, Brie Larson, and more found themselves chatting happily in the front row, waiting for the show to start. The mood was upbeat, which felt befitting Virginie Viard’s latest collection. Per the show notes, she says, “This spring-summer 2024 ready-to-wear collection is an ode to liberty and to movement, and tells a story that has its origins in the gardens of the villa Noailles.”
Villa Noailles, a modernist home in Hyères, was designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens for Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles exactly a century ago. Known for its cubist checkered gardens as well as its unique architecture, Viard found inspiration in the ways light and color, geometric patterns, and contrasting asymmetries intersect. Take for example, a blue beaded top, designed to reflect the tiling found in the pool while sunray pleats are found in short dresses. Tweed, a staple, gets reimagined as dressing gowns while the brand’s signature jackets were worn open, with nothing under. The result was youthful and fresh, reflected in the parade of bathing suits, baby doll dresses, as well as the flower strewn evening dresses.
“I tried to bring one thing and its opposite together in the coolest way possible. And the gardens and swimming pool of the villa Noailles, that exceptional setting, lend themselves to that rather well,” says Viard in the press release. Considering that the room erupted into applause at the end, the disparate ideas were most certainly merged successfully.
Photography courtesy of Chanel.
