For those missing the mountains or craving some après-ski, Chanel’s autumn/winter 2021 collection provided good reason to start planning next winter’s alpine escape.
Inspired by ski holiday chic meets 1970s Parisian cool, Virginie Viard’s latest ready-to-wear offering debuted this morning via a video filmed in the legendary Saint-Germain-des-Prés nightclub Caste. It featured models crossing each other in staircases, piling their coats up in the cloakroom and going up to the next floor to get changed. “I thought of the shows that Karl would tell me about, back in the day… when the models would dress themselves and do their own make-up,” said Viard in the show notes.
Alpine attire came via ski suits in white quilting and fuchsia tweed worn with chain-embellished strappy sandals or camellia-adorned pumps, a faux fur-lined white patent sheepskin coat and giant two-tone furry boots, which came with unzippable legs that revealed a pair of dancefloor-ready silver heeled booties.
Also après-ready were sequin mini dresses and bodysuits worn with fur gilets and tiny rhinestone-embellished bags worn as necklaces, and a gold leather trench worn with a headscarf tied under a trilby.
A back-to-work wardrobe came via a black tweed trouser suit paired with thin pearl braces and layers of golden pendant necklaces, a manly black shirt with white collar and cuffs under a navy lurex suit, and a tweed kilt worn over a knitted jumpsuit. Viard notes that some of these silhouettes remind her of the late British supermodel Stella Tennant’s allure.
“The way she wore certain pieces, it was so Chanel.”
