If you’ve managed to book tickets to the V&A’s box office breaker (it has already largely sold out in pre-sales until the end of the year) ‘Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto’, then you are in for a powerful treat. Over ten sections, Chanel’s extraordinary impact on how women get dressed is painstakingly presented across artful black and white spaces (as if stepping into a Chanel store) through over 200 looks, as well as numerous accessories, perfumes, beauty items and jewellery. It’s an impressive and emotive collection which not only charts the career of an extraordinary if elusive figure, but serves as a document to how women’s wardrobes evolved through her ideas in the Twentieth century.
Beguilingly, an imprint of Chanel’s hand marks the beginning of the exhibition, subtly impressing that her touch echoes through every room. The fashion begins with a simple cream silk-jersey top from 1916, the “marinière blouse” an early signature piece, inspired by fishermen in Deauville, where Chanel opened her first shop in 1913 aimed at vacationing socialites. The blouse echoes the simple lines which Chanel established as her house codes, embellished with a thick bow at the waist, offering the meld of simple with flourished details which she would endlessly reimagine throughout her sixty-year career. Her Twenties day dresses show the line in the fashion sand established early on by Chanel, easy to wear but elegant, comfort being a new idea early in the century which had begun with corsetry and ornamental but constricting fashion. A 1927 sleeveless silk cream tennis dress gives an insight into a novel kind of athleisure and reveals the cool power of Chanel’s pared back touch.
