The lights dimmed, and the Chanel show opened with Penélope Cruz and Brad Pitt on the catwalk. Cruz smouldered in a chic black polo neck and discreet diamonds, Pitt twinkly eyed in an open-necked white shirt. They gazed into each other’s eyes, flirted a little, and then – how could either of them resist? – embarked on a clandestine affair.
Well, almost. Cruz was, in fact, sitting demurely in the front row in a leather skirt suit, and Pitt was not in attendance. The rendezvous was on a short film, made for the show and screened above the catwalk, a remake of a seminal scene in Claude Lelouch’s Un Homme et Une Femme, a classic Gallic romance about a widow and widower falling in love that won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes festival in 1966. Lelouch, now 86, was also a guest of honour at Chanel’s show.
Five days before the Oscars is not a bad time for Chanel to remind the world of how it put movie star magnetism in pop culture. Classic 2.55 handbags make hearts beat faster everywhere. The double-C logo is as much an icon of French allure as the Eiffel Tower. It is a fantasy driven by hard-sell marketing – Pitt is famously reported to have said, of his $7m contract with Chanel No5, that “it’s the right moment and it’s a classic brand and I have six kids to put through college” – but a potent one nonetheless.
The original film was partly made on the windswept beaches of Deauville, the French seaside resort where Coco Chanel defined her sporty aesthetic, radical in its androgyny. The boutique she opened there in 1912 was her first to sell clothes as well as hats. On the boardwalk outside, women were still promenading in corseted parade dresses, but Chanel sold soft pyjama-style trousers and long cardigans belted to keep their silhouette on windy beach walks. Her blouses were styled on the wide-collared tunics of sailors, with a black ribbon bow added as a flourish while the jockey’s saddlecloths she saw at Deauville racecourse inspired the quilted seams of her handbags.
The same silhouettes walked this boardwalked catwalk, in clothes that channelled the off-duty seaside version of Chanel. Taking a trip to Deauville this Paris fashion week is a useful way for Chanel to draw eyes away from Coco’s Nazi collusion in occupied Paris, in the spotlight again while The New Look, a drama set in the fashion world of the 1940s, is on television screens. It is also in step with Virginie Viard’s vision of Chanel, which tends to be more relaxed and looser than Karl Lagerfeld’s highly strung fashion fantasies.
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Subtract the picture hats and hat pins, and these were practical clothes for a 21st-century country mini break. Tweedy ankle length coats rustled over cosy suede boots, high-necked sweaters were layered under peacoats, wool caps pulled down against the wind. Sensible knitted dresses came jazzed up with a jumble of gold necklaces. There was even a puffer jacket, although this being Chanel, a white silk camellia fluttered at the lapel. Plus, of course, there were the real stars of this show: no fewer than 73 chain-strap quilted Chanel handbags.
