Paris Fashion Week: Reese Witherspoon and Juliette Binoche turn out for Armani, while Chanel revisits Coco’s childhood orphanage

Jan 22 , 2020

The setting for the grand unveil of Chanel’s spring/summer 2020 haute couture collection recreated the landscape house founder Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel viewed as a child growing up in an abbey orphanage. Photo: EPA-EFE

Kaia Gerber brought dramatic spring couture to the Left Bank for Givenchy, Burlesque star Dita Von Teese opened the show for Alexis Mabille, while Pharrell Williams watched Chanel transform the Grand Palais to recreate its founder’s childhood home – in an abbey orphanage home

A humble stone fountain, overgrown shrubs and flowers, and white sheets drying on a line met Pharrell Williams and other curious guests at the Chanel show inside the Grand Palais.

Models present creations from Chanel’s spring/summer 2020 haute couture collection, by French designer Virginie Viard, during Paris Fashion Week in January 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE

The set recreated the landscape house founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel viewed as a child after her mother died and her father sent her away to an abbey orphanage.

If such a sad setting seemed like an unusual choice to showcase high-priced and normally joyous couture, it was an intentional move by designer Virginie Viard to demonstrate how Chanel mixed high and low in her fashion.

Here are some highlights from the second day of Paris Fashion Week haute couture shows for spring/summer 2020.

Chanel revisits founder’s childhood orphanage

Chanel, Viard discovered, had been profoundly inspired in all her designs by the ancient Cistercian Abbey of Aubazine, in the French region of Corrèze – with its flowers, uniforms and stained-glass artistry.

The theme made for a more haunting collection than normal – a mood emphasised by loud, spooky music and models that slowly criss-crossed the courtyard like they were in a trance.

Designer Virginie Viard has less humour and a stricter aesthetic take than flamboyant predecessor Karl Lagerfeld, as evidenced by the spring/summer 2020 haute couture collection unveiled during Paris Fashion Week in January 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE

A take on a convent schoolgirl uniform opened the show as a signature Chanel tweed skirt-suit. It was cut sharply, with a round ecclesiastical white collar and baggy white preppy ankle socks. Mosaic patterns in panels evoking stained glass appeared on an equally strict jacket in pastel blue and sand. Apart from the occasional flash of colour, most of the designs came in black and white.