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The iconic Parisian address of 31 rue Cambon has been immortalised, reimagined, and intricately woven through the Chanel house codes in many ways throughout the maison\u2019s rich history, established and honed by Mademoiselle Chanel herself, then subsequently reinterpreted by Karl Lagerfeld and now Virginie Viard.<\/p>\n
However, the newest edition of the Mademoiselle Priv\u00e9 exhibition in Tokyo offers perhaps the most intimate glimpse yet inside the universe of Gabrielle Chanel.<\/p>\n
Grazia\u00a0<\/em>joined Pharrell Williams, Sofia Coppola, and Soo Joo Park in Japan on a wondrous journey via Haute Couture, High Jewellery, and Chanel N\u00ba 5, into the very heart of the house.<\/p>\n White<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest curation of the world tour \u2013 which has already delighted visitors in London, Shanghai, Seoul and Hong Kong \u2013 unfolds in five evocative sequences and five emblematic colours.<\/p>\n The story begins with a wrought-iron staircase \u2013 representing the mirrored entrance to 31 rue Cambon leading from the boutique to the Haute Couture salons on the first floor \u2013 illustrating the first colour of this immersive experience: mirror white. At the top of the stairs, we\u2019re greeted by a door embroidered with the legend \u2018Mademoiselle Priv\u00e9\u2019 \u2013 the words written on the door to her creation studio \u2013 exquisitely handcrafted by Maison Lesage.<\/p>\n Taking its cue from this incandescent hue, iridescent sequinned Haute Couture looks set the tone, shimmering alongside the revolutionary Bijoux de Diamants High Jewellery collection Gabrielle created in 1932, becoming the first couturi\u00e8re ever to do so, and causing quite a stir among the establishment at the time.<\/p>\n Beige<\/strong><\/p>\n Ever the pioneer, Mademoiselle Chanel was startlingly modern when it came to the way she decorated her space. For a start, she chose a beige suede sofa for rue Cambon, at a time suede wasn\u2019t traditionally considered for soft furnishings. Look more closely at the matching cushions and you\u2019ll see stitching that serves as a precursor to the quilting that would later go on to characterise the 2.55, which remains fashion\u2019s most coveted bag to this day.<\/p>\n It also reappears resplendently in High Jewellery \u2013 the Matelass\u00e9 cuff bracelet made from 1,189 diamonds and 308 Japanese cultured pearls \u2013 serving as an elegant example.<\/p>\n Beige has also become part of Chanel\u2019s perennial palette, from the two-tone leather pumps with a black toecap (creating the clever trompe l\u2019oeil illusion of making your legs look longer and your feet appear smaller), which first became part of the Chanel vernacular in 1957, and also in universe of perfumery and beauty. Beige Eau de Toilette was created by Jacques Polge in 2009 for Chanel\u2019s Les Exclusifs \u2013 a tribute to the original perfume created in 1930 \u2013 and a make-up line named Les Beiges was launched in 2013.<\/p>\n The eminently underrated hue comes into its own at the Mademoiselle Priv\u00e9 exhibition in Tokyo, embodied in the sublime sand-coloured cr\u00eape gown from Haute Couture SS16, decorated with wood and glass beads and crystal rhinestone, which took skilled artisans an astonishing 2,200 hours to embroider; and a lace jacket and dress adorned in gold thread and embellished with gold braids from the same collection, which appears alongside it.<\/p>\n Black<\/strong><\/p>\n Now ubiquitous in today\u2019s fashion vernacular, it is truly hard to comprehend that there once was a time when the colour black was reserved for mourning, religious vestments, and uniforms.<\/p>\n When her mother died of tuberculosis, Madame Chanel was sent by her father to be cared for by nuns at the Cistercian Abbey in Aubazine. Their monochrome habits made their mark on the 12-year-old Gabrielle Chanel, and she went on to reclaim black and revolutionise the way it was seen \u2013 from being only commonly seen on nuns and the black smocks of little orphan girls to creating the Little Black Dress in 1926, elevating black to the ultimate symbol of sophistication.<\/p>\n Black runs through Mademoiselle Chanel\u2019s apartment, from the wrought-iron work on the staircase to the Coromandel lacquered screens decorating the dining room, and continues to be an inspiration.<\/p>\n Red<\/strong><\/p>\n For her couture debut, Artistic Director Virginie Viard paid a refined and respectful tribute to the strict, starched nuns\u2019 habits that surrounded Mademoiselle Chanel in her early years, with a precisely executed bustier dress in black duchess satin and a trompe l\u2019oeil-effect petticoated skirt in black velvet with a plastron and tuxedo collar embellished with a bow for Chanel Haute Couture Autumn\/Winter 2019. This breathtaking piece quite rightly takes pride of place at the Mademoiselle Priv\u00e9 exhibition alongside a Lagerfeld-era 3-D printed suit.<\/p>\n Mademoiselle Chanel certainly knew how to make our hearts beat faster, and her affinity for the colour she associated with life, power, splendour and wealth is reinforced in the red lacquered screens and leather-bound books surrounding her writing desk at rue Cambon.<\/p>\n Nowhere is this more evident than the red sequence of the Mademoiselle Priv\u00e9 exhibition. Most dazzling is a short neoprene number from the Autumn\/Winter 2014 Haute Couture collection, covered in a profusion of red, orange and ivory silk cr\u00eape flowers, and further embroidered with red stones that took 610 hours to affix. No less impressive is the red chiffon dress with a pleated over-dress from the Spring\/Summer 2015 Haute Couture runway, which, despite its comparative simplicity, took the Flou Ateliers 400 hours to complete.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, who could forget cult French film director Luc Besson\u2019s interpretation and immortalisation of Estella Warren skipping through the snowy Parisian streets as Little Red Riding Hood in the 1998 short film, Chanel N\u00ba 5: Le Loup (French for The Wolf), in a cinematic celebration of Mademoiselle Chanel\u2019s signature scent.<\/p>\n Also setting our pulses racing is screenwriter, producer and director Sofia Coppola, upon whom was bestowed the honour of making a kooky mini movie In Homage to Mademoiselle, featuring Chanel stalwarts past and present, from Marilyn Monroe and Catherine Deneuve, to Pharrell Williams and Lily-Rose Depp, set to the soundtrack of Oblivion by Grimes, which plays at the end of the exhibition in celebration of its Tokyo edition.<\/p>\n Gold<\/strong><\/p>\n Glamorous but never garish, gold accents prevail throughout Mademoiselle Chanel\u2019s pied-\u00e0-terre, from the grand Baroque mirror over the fireplace to the wheat-sheaf table commissioned from the goldsmith Robert Goossens. Having been raised surrounded by the decorated vestments of the clergy, gold would inform her sartorial and interior design decisions, all of which continue to serve as a rich source of inspiration for her successors, from the late Karl Lagerfeld to Virginie Viard.<\/p>\n Mademoiselle Chanel always believed that every garment should be as beautiful on the inside as it inevitably would be on the outside, and this unprecedented private look into her inner sanctum at rue Cambon proves this was a philosophy she lived by.<\/p>\n What is endlessly fascinating about the house codes is that Gabrielle Chanel\u2019s own talismans, trinkets, personal possessions and childhood memories became the lasting codes of the Maison and have been artfully reinterpreted both on the catwalk and in the Mademoiselle Priv\u00e9 exhibition that\u2019s currently thrilling Tokyo and revealing the soul of Chanel for a whole new generation to discover.<\/p>\n Photos: Supplied<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":583,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[65,35],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2021\/04\/15_White_mirror_pictures_by_Olivier_Saillant_3_HD_10981430.jpeg\")
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