Simply Abu Dhabi XXII

2 6 4 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I Chanel SS 2016 Womenswear "Chanel is above all a style. Fashion passes, style remains." Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel F rench designer, visionary, artist, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel reinvented fashion by transcending its conventions, creating an uncomplicated luxury that changed women’s lives forever. She followed no rules, epitomising the very modern values of freedom, passion and feminine elegance. Famous for her timeless designs, trademark suits and little black dresses, Chanel opened her first shop at Paris’s Rue Cambon in 1910, selling hats. She later added stores in Deauville and Biarritz and beganmaking clothes. Her first taste of clothing success came from a dress she fashioned out of an old jersey on a chilly day. In response to the many people who asked about where she got the dress, she offered to make one for them. “My fortune is built on that old jersey that I’d put on because it was cold in Deauville,” she once told author Paul Morand. In the 1920s, Chanel took her thriving business to new heights and launched her first perfume, Chanel No. 5, which was the first to feature a designer’s name. Perfume “is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory of fashion… that heralds your arrival and prolongs your departure,” Chanel once explained. In 1925, she introduced the now legendary Chanel suit with collarless jacket and well-fitted skirt. Her designs were revolutionary for the time – borrowing elements of men’s wear and emphasising comfort over the constraints of then-popular fashions. She helped women say goodbye to the days of corsets and other confining garments. Another 1920s revolutionary design was Chanel’s little black dress. She took a colour once associated with mourning and showed just how chic it could be for evening wear. In addition to fashion, Chanel was a popular figure in Parisian literary and artistic worlds. She herself became a much revered style icon known for her simple yet sophisticated outfits paired with great accessories, such as several strands of pearls. As Chanel once said, “Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.” Her early years, however, were anything but glamorous. After her mother’s death, Chanel was put in an orphanage by her father, who worked as a peddler. She was raised by nuns who taught her how to sew – a skill that would lead to her life’s work. Her nickname came from another occupation entirely. During her brief career as a singer, Chanel performed in clubs in Vichy and Moulins where she was called Coco. The international economic depression of the 1930s had a negative impact on her company, but it was the outbreak of the Second World War that led Chanel to close her business. She fired her workers and shut down her shops. Chanel left Paris, spending some years in Switzerland in a sort of exile. She also lived at her country house in Roquebrune for a time. At the age of 70, Chanel made a triumphant return to the fashion world. She first received scathing reviews from critics, but her feminine and easy-fitting designs soon won over shoppers around the world. Coco Chanel died on 10 January 1971. A little more than a decade after her death, designer Karl Lagerfeld took the reins at her company to continue the Chanel legacy. Her namesake company is now held privately by the Wertheimer family and continues to thrive, believed to generate hundreds of millions in sales each year. Today Chanel is famous for its global destinations, from Moscow to Seoul to Salzburg to Dallas; the House has presented shows in all of them. This year perhaps more than any other, editors and buyers have really clocked up the air miles, and so Chanel’s airport at Paris’ Grand Palais couldn’t have been a more fitting surrounding in which to showcase its spring/summer collections. Karl Lagerfield transformed the lofty interiors of the Grand Palais into an indoor airport terminal complete with thirty-seven different check-in desks, airline lounges, Chanel branded luggage trolleys, strapping luggage handlers and signage directing models to gates – No. 5 naturally! The models casually emerged, some wheeling along luggage, donning graphic striped and criss-cross tweed skirt suits, some with pencil skirts and dropped shoulder jackets, others with cropped three-quarter sleeve boucle jackets. They were reminiscent of a more glamorous time of air travel, where such an ensemble might secure an upgrade. A fresh parade checked in a younger, sportier look of trackpants or knitted skirts and sweater combos – just the ticket for a comfortable long haul. Topped with baseball caps turned backwards and mirrored aviators to shield their faces they exuded youthful confidence and effortless chic. Layering was key in this collection – from full skirts fastened over trousers, to sweaters tied around waists or knotted around the shoulders. The theme of air travel carried through, right down to the soles of shoes, where flatform sandals were lit up depicting the lights on a runway. Lagerfield has once again created the type of collection that we expect from him and from Chanel – first class.