The main entrance to the Grand Palais now bears the name of Gabrielle Chanel. The Spring- Summer 2025 Ready-to-Wear collection marks CHANEL’s return to the Grand Palais, of which the House is the Grand Patron. Symbolising this reunion, this new show spreads its wings beneath the glass roof of the Nave.
The story presented by the Creation Studio today is all about flying up in the air. At the centre of this cathedral of light, in the heart of the Nave, this gigantic aviary-esque space, a monumental birdcage has been placed as if by magic. One structure reflecting and echoing the other. The small cage hosting a couple of birds that was given to Gabrielle Chanel by one of her seamstresses and that has been reinterpreted in a famous commercial also comes to mind. The extraordinary dimensions of this décor-object, the grace of its lines, even the immense spacing of its bars, render it phantasmagorical. Chairs and benches have been set out to resemble a park or a garden. Here, we can breathe, we can dream.
So begins a ballet of ethereal liberty. Chiffon capes, slit skirts, embroidered transparent shirt dresses, wide-cut and fluid trousers, sequinned and fringed jeans, trench coats with a multicoloured feathers print come together in a choreographic ode to delicacy, lightness and movement.
The collection is a tribute to women who freed themselves from the cumbersome gaze of society, just like Gabrielle Chanel. This flight is dedicated to them. We think of music-hall artist and literary figure Colette, to whom Gabrielle Chanel was a close friend, the garçonne movement that marked the Roaring Twenties, but also the aviatrixes who spoke out and helped change mentalities. Aviator jackets with Peter Pan collars, flight suits in black or white faille, suits with tone-on-tone tie-shape inserts, uniform dresses with white collars, total looks in pink or blue tweed, pastel knits, black skirt knitted as a tribute to the architecture of the venue and sparkling platform shoes: a wind of freedom blows through the collection.
In revisiting the House codes – the suit and the little black dress, tweed and jersey, the quilted bag and the two-tone shoes – the Creation Studio presents a Spring-Summer 2025 Ready-to- Wear collection in the colours of day, of night and the ever-changing sky... A soaring voyage in the Nave of the Grand Palais.
