Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto

In the early twentieth century, the time when excessively decorative styles dominated the world of western women's fashion, Gabrielle Chanel created garments characterised by minimalism and precision. She revolutionised the world of Haute Couture, liberating the bodies of her contemporaries with what amounted to a fashion manifesto.

This exhibition sheds a new light on the timeless style created by Gabrielle Chanel. It shows how the techniques and materials used by the “couturière” remain the tangible proof of her choices and her radical positions.

The exhibition, designed both chronologically and thematically, is composed of two main chapters, respectively dedicated to her work from the 1910s to the 1930s and to the second part of Mademoiselle Chanel’s career, from 1954 to 1971. Her early beginnings are mentioned with a few emblematic pieces, including the famous marinière, the sailor blouse in jersey, which was introduced in 1913. The development of Chanel’s style is evoked, from the sporty models and little black dresses of the 1910s to the sophisticated dresses initiated in the 1920s. This first part centers on notions such as simplicity, youth, movement or allure, mentioned unanimously and regularly by the press from the start of her career. These notions, illustrated by a selection of distinctive models, reveal Gabrielle Chanel’s work specificity.

Furthermore, the exhibition aims to showcase the consistency of her vision, and to show how Gabrielle Chanel’s creations – garments, beauty products, accessories, jewellery – form a coherent whole and contribute to the unity of her style. Consequently, one room is devoted entirely to “N°5”, created in 1921 and quintessentially the spirit of Gabrielle Chanel.

The second part of the exhibition presents a selection of models dated from the 1950s to the last collection created by Mademoiselle in 1971. This selection shows how by returning to couture in 1954 and, against the trend, she reaffirmed her fashion manifesto. A focus dedicated to the famous braided tweed suit, to the two-tone pumps and to the 2.55 quilted bag, allows us to decipher the CHANEL codes. The costume and fine jewellery presented with lamé suits, in contrast with the sobriety of her clothes, recall her art in the handling of paradoxes. The exhibition ends with a selection of models and two films presenting the last collections created by Gabrielle Chanel, showing the consistency with which she pursued and adapted her proposals. Faithful to her own style and positioning herself at odds with the fashion of her time, she was resolutely avant-garde: «One could say that Chanel barely or never varies her line but this is precisely her strength», reports Vogue Paris in April 1921.

Photo portraits of Gabrielle Chanel accompany each theme of the exhibition and show the extent to which the "couturière" herself was the embodiment of her brand.

Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto is an invitation to discover a universe and a style that are truly timeless, with more than 200 pieces from the Palais Galliera collections and Patrimoine de CHANEL, from international museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Arizona State University FIDM Museum in Los Angeles, the Musée des Arts décoratifs and the Alaïa Foundation in Paris

Curators

Miren Arzalluz, director of the Palais Galliera

Véronique Belloir, curator

Exhibition Designer: Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Graphic Designer: Jumping He

With the exclusive support of CHANEL

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