The V&A’s new Chanel show, a reimagining of an exhibition originally staged at the Palais Galliera in Paris in 2020, begins and ends with utmost simplicity. The first thing the visitor sees, its ivory folds radiant in the dark, is a blouse of silk jersey with a sailor collar; the last is a rather severe black worsted suit and hat. Neither of these garments is especially stunning: the former is simply one of the earliest extant Chanel pieces, dating from 1916; the latter, designed in 1969, was bought by the V&A at a Christie’s sale of Chanel’s personal collection in 1978, seven years after her death. But together they bookend the displays stupendously. If the blouse speaks of inception – here is Chanel falling on the unadorned ease that would become her trademark – the suit brings to mind a priest racing to a bedside. Its long, dark jacket worked on me like smelling salts after a deep swoon.
