PARIS — Only Chanel would call its legendary Rue Cambon salon “too small” – then rebuild it, supersized, in a palace.
On Tuesday, as the house marked 110 years of its haute couture – a century and more of Coco Chanel’s revolution in how women dress – it blew up its atelier as a giant set inside the freshly restored Grand Palais, turning intimacy into spectacle for a nature-drenched show at Paris Couture Week.
Chanel, whose founder banished corsets and reimagined luxury as liberation, showed just how far that legacy stretches: from the tiny salons of 1915 to its modern colossus.
It was a flex only a handful of luxury giants could pull off – and perhaps, as one front-row guest suggested, a dazzling distraction as the fashion world counts down to the debut of Chanel’s new designer Matthieu Blazy.
Penélope Cruz, Naomi Campbell and the house’s tightest VIP circle