Chanel and Kristen Stewart: an attempt to revere cinema is about costume design

words Maria Hristina Agut

Virginie Viard revises Alain Resnais’s L’Année Dernière à Marienbad, presenting a short movie starring Kristan Stewart: she becomes the inspiration for the Spring 23 line

Chanel Spring 23 Ready to wear – a black-and-white French movie

One thing no one says out loud about Chanel is how ever since Coco herself, the Maison’s clothing erupted as a dedication to good girls gone bad. That’s probably because, unlike other femme fatale brand impersonators, the Chanel women had no intention of throwing it in your face. With Chanel, the message is always subtle and playful, sometimes even lost in translation. Not everyone speaks french.

«It’s no longer key to know who you are or even what you want. But to burn down your very best yesterday, every day, so you can start again». The catwalk snaps out with Kristen Stewart’s declaration on the otherwise silent screen, where she becomes the supreme muse in a high-collared tailleur and pixie shortcut.

For the 23 Spring Ready to Wear line, Viginie Viard chose yet another cryptical reference, drawing inspiration from hers and Coco Chanel’s shared beginnings in costume design. A 1961 French New Wave cinematographic monument, L’annee dernière à Marienbad, brings the show pieces together with borrowed references as the silhouettes and attitudes imposed by Delphine Seyrig’s Gabrielle Chanel designed dresses.

The general atmosphere evolves between disconnected and rebelled visual tendencies: a floating feathered dress or silken leisurewear suit ping-pongs with punk black leathers and school girl sock-boots. As movie scenes flow on the walls, the models materialize a history made of archives, conveying lingering pastels and chronic blings.

What does a muse represent in today’s fashion? The Chanel eternal quest

Inez and Vinoodh shot a modern-day black-and-white movie in Paris, with Kristen Stewart as the sole protagonist. Surrounded by dreamy spaces, she gives a preview of the collection’s pieces, moving from film theaters, Parisian streets, or the metro to an idyllic Rue Cambon Chanel staircase, embracing the fashion atelier – a city of its own. The young actress became more than just a brand ambassador, overlapping the very essence and identity of today’s Chanel.

This obsession with its muses has always been substantial for the french house. Either for marketing purposes or a human-oriented belief system, Chanel always tried to put a face on its meaning in the fashion world. On Kristen Stewart, Virginie Viard confesses «of the people around me, she is the closest to Gabrielle Chanel, at least to my idea of her. She understands CHANEL, its clothes. And with her, it becomes even more modern». Spring 23 Ready to Wear is an ode to the actress, concludes the creative director.

Kristan Stewart – a teen culture landmark

During the passing decade, Kristan Stewart remained a teen culture landmark, her style advancing into a more sophisticated thug. She represents what Chanel perceives as melancholic freedom, an introverted riot dressed in glamorized practicality «swirling with modernity and lightness». The creative director inserts feminine hints of pearls and ostrich feathers alongside bows and sequins.

The prints are nostalgic, with deeply hidden glossy CCs and tiny polka dots to refresh the silk chiffons and romantic tweeds. Hot pink tailleurs break the pale hues, confessing to a Barbie-core trend takeover. Deep V necks mixed with loose shoulder cuts hint at the poetic allure of the ensembles completed by the centerpiece – the shoes. They come covered in rhinestones or mimicking a net-socking effect adorned with microscopic bows and glitters.

The Chanel styling. It’s in the jewelry

Spacing out from the sumptuous fabrics, and carefully choreographed prints, we see progressively bold ornamentation. Clean wet looks are quietly disturbed by bloody burgundy lipstick shades, with only heavy gemmed earrings to frame the models’ faces.

One of Chanel’s most notable innovations was in the custom jewelry department. She seized the opportunity to reinvent the constraining and inexpressive accessorizing customs. Her talent lies in making something faux look more veritable than the original. «Costume jewelry isn’t made to provoke desire» Gabrielle Chanel would say, calling the precious embellishment ‘amusement’. It comes as no surprise that the 23 Spring line features cuff bracelets decorated with a miniature Chanel eyeshadows palette matched with earrings in the number five character.

For this collection, the gem pieces are dripping, let loose, with the iconic Maltese cross on sparkling belts. Initially designed to replace the masculine shirt cuff, the Chanel bracelets made in leather, mimic sumptuous bows. Hearts dipped in glittering stones and microscopic handbags hang from the model’s years and necks, while the chokers imitate Delphine Seyrig’s golden necklaces worn in L’annee derniere a Marienbad. Individualizing itself through the use of abundant self-referential elements, Chanel strives in the liminal space between caricatural and glorifying.

The existence of fashion on the screens

Costume design and cinema fashion become the red thread bringing together Virginie Viard’s mastery and Gabrielle Chanel’s genius. The cinematographic cosmos gave inspiration to both creatives who aim at impregnating character stories within the garments. Viard began her career working as Dominique Borg’s assistant with whom she would develop the costumes for Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors. Coco Chanel began her recognition in the world of theater when she designed the hats for Sacre du Printemps (1913), later contributing to the rebirth of cinema stars like Romy Schneider and Brigitte Bardot.

Alike make-up losing more than 35% of its effect on screens, garments need exaggeration to be noticed. Chanel once again proves its understanding of fashion and media dynamics. Luxury is only effective when everyone can perceive it. «It’s exhilarating and it’s highly pressurized because our identities are these lifelong evolving art projects,» Kristen Stewart says in the opening short motion, emphasizing the questionable reasons behind dressing up.

Chanel 23 Spring Ready to wear collection

With its 23 Spring Ready to wear collection, Chanel strikes questions just as Alain Resnais’s L’Annee Derniere a Marienbad did in 1961. Inspired by Argentinian writer Adolfo Bioy Casares’s novel, The Invention of Morel, the movie received the Leone D’Oro at the Venice Film Festival. The Chanel dresses help contemplate a questionable relationship between two apparent lovers, where feathered dresses and gloriously decorated spaces only deepen the image of an alienated woman. The movie shines a light on a question: Who is more delusional? Someone who denies oneself love, or someone who wants it at all costs? It is the ever-lasting question of fashion itself. What imprisons more between neglect and obsession?

In the French movie, Chanel garments are a sign of the time, with the ‘Marienbad dress’ as a mark of modernity and alternation. However, it’s safe to say that if in 1961, women were wearing Chanel to navigate the future, today, those who dress in Chanel want to turn back to the past.