A major new Chanel exhibition at London’s V&A Museum highlights the luxury brand’s connections to Ireland dating back to the 1930s.
Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto traces the life and work of the French designer, who founded the House of Chanel, as well as offshoot firm British Chanel Limited.
“This was an umbrella company set up in 1932 to work with an array of British textile manufacturers,” says Oriole Cullen, curator of modern textiles and fashion at the V&A, who comes from Dublin.
“One of the other companies that she worked with was the Old Bleach Linen Company, which was based in Randalstown in Co Antrim.”
Born in the Loire Valley in 1883, Chanel was taught to sew by nuns in the orphanage to which she was sent aged 11, when her mother died.
Starting her career as a seamstress and cabaret singer, before establishing herself as a milliner, she later turned her focus to couture fashion and began designing casual clothing for women, inspired by the menswear of the era.
Designing primarily for herself, Chanel embodied her brand in a way no other designer had done before.
“Before her, designers weren’t really known,” says Cullen. “Their names were known, but they weren’t visible figures within society.”
The exhibition title refers to the “ideas that she ushered in 100 years ago”, Cullen continues, which remain at the heart of the brand today.
“The meaning of that is really about a template that Gabrielle Chanel set out at the very beginning of her design career, and came back to – reimagined and reinvented – throughout her long career of sixty years.”
Bringing together nearly 200 outfits, the show features items from the opening of her first millinery boutique in Paris in 1910, to the showing of her final collection, two weeks after she died in 1971.
Signature designs on display include little black dresses, tweed suits and quilted leather handbags – the most iconic of which is the 2.55 bag.
“The 2.55 has never really gone out of fashion since she designed it in 1955,” Cullen says. “That is fascinating in terms of high fashion, that an object can stay the course for such a long time and still be relevant.”
Part of the upper echelons of French society, Chanel initially relied on wealthy lovers, such as French ex-cavalry officer Etienne Balsan and English polo player Arthur Edward ‘Boy’ Capel, to fund her boutiques.
Later becoming a celebrity in her own right, she amassed a personal fortune, thanks to the success of her fashion, accessories and cosmetics lines.
“The perfume Chanel No5 was introduced in 1921, but then introducing make-up in 1924 and skincare in 1927, she was really ahead of her time,” Cullen says.
“It’s something she was doing because she was designing for herself.”
Chanel is credited with helping to liberate women from the constricting corsets and long skirts that were de rigeur at the turn of the century, and for popularising softer textiles, such as jersey.
“She cuts her garments with high armholes so you can lift your arms over your head,” Cullen continues.
“She thinks about fabrics that are practical and skirt lengths you can move in.”
Split into 10 sections, the exhibition concludes with a recreation of the mirrored staircase from Chanel’s Paris atelier.
“Gabrielle Chanel used to sit at the top of the stairs when she was having presentations,” Cullen explains.
“The models would descend and this faceted mirror would reflect back the audience’s faces to her, so she could read the mood in the room.”
Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto opens at London’s V&A Museum on September 16th. Tickets available at vam.ac.uk/chanel
