The Next Chapter

Set in a grand circular library, Chanel artistic director Virginie Viard’s first haute couture show turns the page on the house’s theatrical direction, with a presentation characterised by elegant restraint

- Kissa Castañeda

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s apartment on rue Cambon in Paris is full of them, and Karl Lagerfeld’s office was famously lined with them as well. We are talking about books—the preferred companion of Coco and Lagerfeld, who were both known to be voracious readers.

Literature shaped their worldview as well as the way they designed; it also had a profound influence on the very essence of the house. So, it’s fitting that the new Chanel artistic director, Virginie Viard, who is a bibliophile herself, decided to dedicate her first haute couture show to their shared love of books. Viard, who took the creative reins after Lagerfeld’s passing early this year, has already showed her desire to start a new chapter for the house while being respectful to the narrative that Coco and Lagerfeld had created.

A QUIET PLACE

“Books are my best friends,” Coco once mused to writer Paul Morand. Her clear affinity for tomes and the written word inspired the metamorphosis of the Grand Palais, which was transformed into a circular library that reminded me of the iconic Stockholms Stadsbibliotek (Stockholm Public Library) in Sweden.