Chanel, bourgeois drama at the Opéra. Discreet, lunar elegance for Armani Privé
The first fashion show after Virginie Viard's farewell reaffirms the codes of the maison of the double C. Giorgio Armani signs low-cut and sparkling dresses, imagined as calligraphies of light and line
by Angelo Flaccavento
2' min read
2' min read
One day, a history of contemporary fashion should be written through the eyes of the teams who, in perfect anonymity, have kept the style of historic maisons alive in moments of creative transition. The results would certainly be interesting, and would most likely show a mixture of orthodoxy with regard to the archive and gentle attempts at irreverence in updating, while avoiding authorial frenzies.
Chanel 's haute couture collection shows in the Opera foyer. It is the first since Virginie Viard parted ways with the maison, but the event is still too recent not to see touches of her Chanel in it. Viard did an excellent job, but was perhaps ill-suited to leadership. Her collections lacked to coalesce around a clear fashion message, rather highlighting the supreme power of the brand. This test is also 100 per cent Chanel, with no flare, but it follows a clear thread, and the whole thing benefits. The thought is: if we are at the Opera, better to speed up on the theatricality, but without making costumes. There is something eighteenth-century in the laces and falpalas, in the bustiers and capes; and there is also a lot of Karl Lagerfeld, in the expressionist geometry of certain cuts, in the Teutonic drama. At times the hand is heavy, but the observance of codes - tweeds, suits, bourgeois chic - ensures continuity.
It is light, even in the opulence of the embroideries that quiver almost from start to finish, and the pearls that shimmer everywhere, silvery and opalescent, the proof of Armani Privé. "I wanted to create clothes that would evoke an idea of calm elegance, discreet and luxurious at the same time," says Armani, who is always acknowledged for the supreme power of concentration and disdain for smears, as well as the spirit of synthesis summed up in pure and supple silhouettes. "Pearls, with their lustre that enchants and never dazzles, inspired me in imagining an intense, seductive woman with a lunar and barely melancholic charm.
One always appreciates an Armani fashion show for its continuity rather than its rupture, for its reaffirmation of the code rather than its distortion, yet the difference from one collection to the next is still tangible. This time Armaniism is particularly graphic and seductive, but it is not the impeccable, shiny suits that catch the eye; rather, the low-cut, glittering, red carpet dresses, imagined as calligraphies of light and line.
Compared to such an exercise in subtraction, the bourgeois attic drama by the very youngCharles de Vilmorin is anarchic and frothy, a little homely in execution but with an energy that, if properly channelled, could bear fruit. At the moment it is only theatre, but there is time.
