The camellia has long been associated with the House of Chanel. Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel fell in love with the beautiful bloom at the age of 13 while watching Sarah Bernhardt’s performance in Alexandre Dumas’ The Lady of the Camellias. French novelist Marcel Proust and his friends wore camellia pins on their lapels as a sign of refinement, unity and ambiguity.
On a day out at the Étretat seaside in Normandy, France, Mademoiselle Chanel casually slipped the flower into the belt of her Breton shirt. In 1923, she pinned the flower onto a chiffon dress for the first time, and the rest is history. With no fragrance and sporting the beautiful geometry of nature, the camellia was transformed to suit her every fantasy. The flower of Chanel has been fashioned from a slew of materials and adorned fabrics, watches, jewellery pieces, ceramics and more over the course of 100 years.
After taking the helm at Chanel in 1983, Karl Lagerfeld used the camellia as an eternal symbol of the house time and again. The flower reached never-before-seen exaltation in 2005, when he designed a wedding dress embroidered with 4,000 blossoms for its fall/winter 2005/06 haute couture collection.
That is why the camellia is more than a theme, says creative director of Chanel Virginie Viard. “It’s an eternal code of the house. I find it reassuring and familiar; I like its softness and its strength.”
With the fashion world in the maelstrom of a retro mode right now, Viard looks back to the iconic flower to accomplish a collection that truly encapsulates the spirit of the brand. In true Chanel fashion, the fall/winter 2023/24 ready-to-wear looks presented at Grand Palais Éphémère were effortlessly elegant, feminine and timeless.
Her masterful interpretation can be seen in the little touches, although we would have loved a bit more high-octane silhouettes and fashion moments. The revered motif is carefully worked onto jackets, skirts, bags and shoes as 3D embellishments, and the prints are a romantic pièce de résistance.
Viard envisioned this collection to be delicate and in motion. “The energy of the merry-go-round of wooden horses that provides the setting for Inez and Vinoodh’s film, with actress Nana Komatsu as the heroine, gave me the idea for the Bermuda shorts suits and the asymmetries,” she says, referring to the film and series of photos released as a preview ahead of the show.
Her approach has been to continue in the same direction envisioned by Coco Chanel and Lagerfeld. That means working with luxe, delicate fabrics and unexpected detailing, while keeping the designs rooted in catering to a woman’s needs. From the asymmetrical cuts and revealing backs to the thread-, sequin- and beadwork, it is the masculine-feminine juxtaposition that continues to power the brand.
“The faded colours, the dusky pink, the crafted pieces, the touches of the 1960s and 1970s, a certain English vibe, the comfortable, enveloping coats, the authentic materials make the collections more real, and more charming too,” Viard says.
And no matter how many births it takes at the House of Chanel, the camellia’s enduring power and pulchritude will always be an everlasting source of inspiration and strength.
This article first appeared on Mar 20, 2023 in The Edge Malaysia.