Presented in December of last year, Virginie Viard’s second Métiers D’Art collection drew on Gabrielle Chanel’s admiration of renaissance women, mixing different eras, rock and “something very girly”.
“[Gabrielle Chanel] so admired renaissance women,” said Viard at the time. “Her taste for lace ruffs and the aesthetic of certain pieces of her jewellery come from there.”
Today, exclusively on AnOther, Chanel reveals a short film about this collection from the documentary filmmaker Loïc Prigent. In it, Prigent heads inside Chanel’s Métiers d’art ateliers, where he meets the embroiders, feather workers, weavers, shoemakers, silversmiths and milliners who all brought their skills to the table to create this luxurious collection.
The show took place in and, crucially, took inspiration from the Château de Chenonceau, a beautiful renaissance chateau that Henry II famously offered as a gift to his mistress Diane de Poitiers. Prigent explains how exactly the chateau informed the collection – from the lions that appear throughout the castle, which ended up on the buttons, to the gallery’s black and white floor tiles, which inspired the tweeds and bags.
Watch the film below.
