The fashion brand took hold of the Paramount Picture Studios lot to unveil its latest cruise collection on a chilly Tuesday night.
The team at Chanel has been busy, to say the least. Between staging the Met’s new Costume Institute exhibit honouring Karl Lagerfeld, longtime creative director, dressing a bevy of stars including house ambassadors Penélope Cruz and Blackpink’s Jennie for the Met Gala, and opening a brand-spanking-new 30,000 square-foot store in Beverly Hills, the quintessential French brand has been living the American dream this month. For their resort 2024 show, they stayed on the west coast to present a Venice-meets-Left Bank collection that relied less on stereotypical “Hollywood” aesthetics and more on capital-f Fun. Virginie Viard has embraced femininity and softened the Chanel woman since taking over the creative reins in 2019. She raised the bar for this collection, taking a cue from her predecessor Karl Lagerfeld’s fondness for drama through a nostalgic, upbeat vision of Los Angeles.
The runway was a skate park, guests seats were set up like sports venue bleachers, rollerbladers were skating around pre-show, fast food trucks were everywhere, a ginormous theatre screen played moving shots in black and white, and the show’s details were displayed on a basketball scoreboard. While the collection paid tribute to the cinematic city, Viard did not fail to include the quintessential Chanel codes typically incorporated in each collection. Tweed suits, sequin adornments, and feminine silhouettes all made an appearance, staying true to the Chanel woman. It was a line that spoke to the numerous types of Hollywood women seen throughout the years. From the ’60s businesswoman in her tweed suit to the ’80s fitness instructor exercising in her leg warmers and high-cut bodysuit to the 2014 party girl dancing the night away in her sequin minidress, it was an imaginative and celebrity collection.
“The idea is to offer a breath of fresh air, a voyage, a light-hearted and happy fantasy. Between a tribute to the glamour of great film stars and evoking the world of fun to be had with aerobics, sports, and roller skating, between the dream on one hand and what you want on the other, it’s all a question of balance,” said Chanel artistic director Virginie Viard in the collection’s show notes. And she also added the inspiration for the cruise collection, “From John Travolta to Jane Fonda, so many actresses, the body, the gym, aerobics,” “Un per sport, un peu tweed.”
The Chanel Cruise 2024 was definitely an ode to the sporty era, roller skating gliding effortlessly beside the beach and the glitzy athleisure attire of Beverly Hills housewives. Models walked out to Jerry Goldsmith’s provocative opening song from the 1992 noir film “Basic Instinct,” not in Mademoiselle’s LBDs, but in Hollywood glam-gone-to-the-gym.
The collection featured a series of swimsuits paired with sneakers with thick rubber soles and covered with sparkly leg warmers, referring to the gym craze of the ‘80s, a là the 1985 film “Perfect”. There were also double-C cutout bikinis with sneakers, hot pants, flirty bouclé suits, crystal-edged dolphin shorts, comet-embroidered high-cut leotards, Barbie pink tweed short shorts, bustiers, minidresses, tank tops, jackets, coats, chiffon dresses in bold camellia prints, bedazzled bodysuits, tailored crop tops, basketball-style short, leather button-up dress, and leg warmers. Footwear included daintier lace-up leather boxing style shoes, crystal-encrusted ankle strap high-heeled sandals, round-toe ankle-strap heels, disco light-up heels, sparkly heels, patent leather ballet flats, and more. The collection’s palette ranges from pastels and saturated hues, including shades of bubble-gum pink, eggplant, and yellow with pops of blue and gold.
The show had one of the most stunning celebrities in attendance on the front row, like Margot Robbie, Paris Hilton, Riley Keough, Lucy Boynton, Rose Byrne, Kristen Stewart, Tracee Ellis Ross, Sofia Richie Grainge, Nike Rogers, Kim Petras, and a slew of others. The show also had Snoop Dogg’s live performance.
See some of the looks from Chanel’s 2024 Cruise collection.
