Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel’s opulent Rue Cambon apartment – a Paris address that also houses the haute couture atelier of her namesake maison – features eight lacquered Coromandel screens, the richly decorated folding partitions that originate from China. They were a particular fascination of the couturier, who is said to have owned 32 in total, and who would use them as lavish wall decorations or to cover doorways when she wanted to hide away from guests. ‘I nearly fainted with joy when, entering a Chinese shop, I saw a Coromandel for the first time,’ she said of her opening encounter with the decorative object, aged 18.
The largest screen in the Rue Cambon apartment features a depiction of West Lake, a freshwater lake in Hangzhou, the capital of China’s historic Zhejiang province. Its serene waters, which once were located inside the ancient city’s walls, feature manmade islands and causeways, as well as numerous decorative pagodas and temples along its shoreline. As such, it has been a subject of mythic tales and poetic musings, before being used by Marco Polo as a symbol of China that he brought back to the West in the 13th century. In 2011 West Lake was designated a World Cultural Heritage Site by Unesco.
Earlier today, West Lake was also the location of Chanel’s latest Métiers d'Art show, the annual happening that celebrates the various, highly specific craftspeople and organisations that contribute to the house’s collections, from feather workers and embroiderers to milliners and goldsmiths (. The location was teased with a Wim Wenders-directed film released earlier this week, which features longtime house muse Tilda Swinton travelling from the Rue Cambon apartment to West Lake before cruising its famed waters in a traditional decorative boat (the film also stars fellow house ambassadors Xin Zhilei and Leah Dou).
‘Gabrielle Chanel never travelled to Hangzhou,’ reads the film’s final slide. ‘In the coming days, the house of Chanel finally will.’
And so the show took place at the onset of evening, a series of wooden runways, hovering just above the lake’s surface, providing the runway (the idea, said Chanel, was to evoke the illusion that they were walking on water). Indeed, there was a decidedly nighttime mood to the collection, from the sweeping midnight black overcoats which opened the show, to lavishly decorated tweed jackets and a series of garments in gilded gold (others were adorned with delicate, boudoir-like feather trims). The tweed suit ran throughout, in various iterations – some jackets were cropped to reveal patterned bodysuits beneath, while skirts moved from abbreviated and kilt-like to a longer, fuller skirt – while a more casual mood emerged in bermuda shorts, denim skirts, and a gently padded set which recalled nightwear (the idea of travel and movement was another inspiration).
As ever with the house’s Métiers d’Art collections, the true poetry of these pieces came from the extraordinary expressions of craft and embellishment that ran throughout. There were camelia motifs embroidered by Lesage (Coco Chanel’s love of the flower was purportedly in part inspired by their use in Chinese artworks), intricate pleats and piping, and fantastical panels of sequins and crystals. In a statement, Chanel praised the ‘savoir-faire’ of its various Métiers d’Art, ‘the dynamics of its layering and the romanticism of its refinement’.
The collection was designed by the house’s studio team, following the departure of former creative director Virginie Viard last June. Rumours of her replacement continue to swirl, and the news is reportedly imminent. Though this evening in Hangzhou, it was the Chanel craftspeople – those magicians behind the curtain – who took their deserved place centre stage.
Watch Wim Wenders’s short film for Chanel, starring Tilda Swinton, below.
