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At this point the word ‘tweed’ is practically synonymous with the name ‘Chanel’, so it was of little surprise that creative director Virginie Viard decided to dedicate an entire collection to the fabric for fall winter 2022. This was evident from the invitations, each made in a different shade of tweed, down to the show’s location in the Grand Palais Éphémère, which had been revamped to create a ‘river’ made entirely of tweed. The river was an homage to the aptly named River Tweed in Scotland, where Coco Chanel used to take romantic sojourns with her lover the Duke of Wellington in the 1920s. The Duke’s jackets, made with tweed spun in Scotland, became the prototype for the now-iconic Chanel tweed blazer, a fact the brand revealed in a charming short film that debuted in 2013.
The fall winter 2022 collection, aptly titled ‘Infinite Tweed’, was narrative-driven, evoking a cosy winter weekend spent with a new lover in some charming Scottish village. There were oversized tweed coats worn with Chanel logoed knee-high wellington boots; denim shorts worn with slouchy cardigans and thigh-skimming knitted socks (Glastonbury, the Chanel way); and tweed mini dresses worn with thick coloured tights. Coco Chanel first began thinking about a tweed jacket for women when she started wearing the Duke’s oversized jackets during long walks through the Scottish countryside. Viard experimented with this idea through chunky oversized silhouettes that had a ‘borrowed from the boys’ quality. “There’s nothing sexier than wearing the clothes of the person you love,” she wrote in the collection’s notes. “Of course, I’m fascinated by this ever-contemporary gesture. And it’s Chanel that renders the tweed feminine.”
Chanel’s Scottish trips influenced the colour palette, too. “We followed the footsteps of Gabrielle Chanel along the River Tweed, to imagine tweeds in the colors of this landscape,” she wrote. The end result? An array of soft forest greens, rose pinks, and earthy browns. According to company lore, Chanel would gather flowers from the riverside and use them as references in her next collections. All told, FW ’22 felt like a refreshing break from an industry that is now obsessed by skin-heavy sexiness. It’s a compelling trend to be sure, but Viard’s more understated definition of sexy—the subverting power of a masculine-style jacket, the timeless appeal of a perfectly-cut Chanel skirt suit—felt equally relevant and enticing. Some things never go out of style, and a Chanel tweed jacket is up there with the best of them.
