Chanel held its haute couture show on Tuesday just three weeks after the very abrupt departure of creative director Virginie Viard following almost 30 years with the brand. Viard worked alongside the legendary Karl Lagerfeld for years before taking over at the helm after his death in 2019. She oversaw record sales of nearly $20 billion last year.
But a crisis had been brewing for months, with sceptical pouts on the front row and murmurs that her shows were growing repetitive, and her departure was suddenly announced in early June. Viard, 62, did not even get a swansong on Tuesday, with the latest collection instead credited to the 150 artisans of its workshop on Rue Cambon. It was a typically sophisticated and theatrical collection, staged in the Opera Garnier, with medieval capes, evening dresses with puffed sleeves, matador outfits and a velvet tuxedo alongside the house's classic tweeds -- with a touch of Lagerfeld-ian vinyl thrown in.
Viard's tenure looked doomed in May when a mid-season "cruise" show in Marseille failed to impress fans -- not helped by the unseasonably cold weather on the Cote d'Azur. A month later, her departure was announced in less than elegant form -- revealed to the specialist press in the middle of the night. Paris-based designer Lutz Huelle told AFP that replacing "one of the biggest and best-loved designers at the biggest brand in the world (was) a literally impossible task".
Viard's takeover was seen as a temporary appointment at the time, altho.
