Chanel’s Virginie Viard, Karl Lagerfeld’s successor, harks back to the golden age of train travel at debut show
- Actress Keira Knightley and singer Jay Chou in the front row as designer Virginie Viard ditches bling for classy, railway-themed debut for French label
Virginie Viard made a classy and elegant debut in her first complete collection for Chanel last Friday after taking over from the late Karl Lagerfeld at the iconic French label.
The designer, who was Lagerfeld’s right-hand woman for years, emerged from his shadow with a highly feminine and wearable cruise collection in a minimalist show at the Grand Palais in Paris – the scene of the Kaiser’s most decadent extravaganzas.
Where Lagerfeld was flashy and streetwise, his successor was restrained, with the bling factor turned right down in favour of a flattering slimline look.
Instead she harked back to the golden age of train travel when the brand’s founder, Coco Chanel, would take her arty friends on the “Train bleu” down to her villa on the French Riviera near Monaco.
Yet instead of recreating a life-size locomotive or the Orient Express inside the vast Grand Palais as Lagerfeld might have, Viard went with an understated train platform with the front row either side of a recessed train track.
