An illustrated encyclopedia will speak about Karl Lagerfeld´s last collection and the House´s secrets.
For the first time ever Chanel HQ at 31 Rue Cambon will open the doors to anyone albeit only on the pages of their new book. The fans of the famous fashion brand are familiar of the atelier´s façade and its iconic mirror staircase, however, what happened on the upper floors so far has been terra incognita for the general public.
The book written by Laetitia Cenac and illustrated by Jean-Philippe Delhomme will be titled ´The Making of a Collection’. It tells about the atelier’s day-to-day life, the work on the Métiers d’Art 2018 collection, and Chanel’s Spring 2019 show. The history will be told in present tense will go further back towards the roots, the days after Coco Chanel opened her hat shop.
One of the chapters tells about what happens behind the scenes of Chanel fashion shows. Cenac says that just two days before the models hit the catwalk the heads of the atelier’s four workshops gather in a room to check on all of the dresses made for the show. These maitres are Odille Massuger, head of tailoring, Yvette Van Der Linde, head of the bag department, Rosemarie Eliot, master of accessories, and Laurence Dacade, head of the shoes department. Alongside the fabric director Kim Young-Seong they go through every single item.
Many of the brand’s solutions will be revealed on the pages of the book. This way Flore Vladaj, head of atelier flou dress design bureau, has unveiled a tailor’s secret: ‘Chanel dresses have a trick: they may look straight, but the truth is, they are all cone-shaped’, says Ms. Vladaj. ‘The shape follows the body silhouette without reveiling it’, adds the designer. Christine Allix, head of the famous suit atelier, told about the secrets behind Chanel jackets including the iconic chain stitched into the lower part in order to preserve the jacket’s shape.
Apart from all of the above, the book includes an article written by Karl Lagerfeld. The passing of the maître who presided over Chanel for over 40 years was a serious loss for the house. On June 20 Paris housed the Karl Lagerfeld memorial, and on July 2 his successor Virginie Viard presented her new collection.
