Gabrielle Coco Chanel’s contribution to fashion will be marked in a landmark London V&A exhibition in 2023. Based on Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto, a retrospective of the designer’s six-decade career curated by Paris’s Palais Galliera, the London institution will put its own twist on the display catalogue, with rarely seen pieces from the V&A’s own archive. To state the obvious, this is going to be major for Chanelophiles or anyone who has a remote interest in fashion history.
This is the woman who reshaped what it was like to get dressed in the early 20th century through her ground-breaking silhouettes that prioritised freedom, over tradition. Her Chanel 2.55 – the most famous bag by the house even to this day – was the first mainstream shoulder bag, and loaded with practical details, from a back pocket designed for storing cash to a middle compartment the perfect size for lipsticks and a discreet zip-lined inner made to conceal love letters. Even the chain strap was inspired by the tiny weights Chanel used to give her bouclé jackets an immaculate finish. All these details, plus many more intricacies at the heart of Chanel, will be on display in an eight-section showcase spanning the opening of Coco’s first Parisian boutique in 1910 to the presentation of her final Chanel collection in 1971.
Amongst the 180 looks – as well as the jewellery, accessories, cosmetics and perfumes, which will be showcased for the first time together – V&A guests can expect to see Lauren Bacall and Marlene Dietrich outfits up close, as well as detailed run-throughs of the construction of the remarkable house tweed. This mix of unparalleled glamour and hard work defines the legacy of the fashion figurehead Bruno Pavlovsky, president of Chanel fashion and Chanel SAS, calls one of the “greatest visionaries of our time”. Stay tuned for information on Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto, which will run from 16 September 2023 to 25 February 2024.
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