Chanel Goes Punk With Its Cruise 2021 Collection
Chanel is not going for the obvious with the Cruise 2021 collection. For the collection, Chanel creative director Virginie Viard took the audience through time to a chic post-apocalyptic wasteland - and it was just as poignant as you might expect. The brand set the tone with the chiseled walls of the Carrières de Lumières in Les Baux-de-Provence, with clean silhouettes adorned with punk-inspired decorations. There were logo lip rings, padded thigh pockets, fishnets, pale washed denim adorned with the same chalky motifs as on the walls of the collection's background. But what was even more interesting was how well the rock'n'roll decals blended with the house's signature tweed fabric and classic custom designs.
Inspired by French literator Jean Cocteau's 1960 film Testament of Orpheus, the famous fashion house finds the balance between the future and the past in its Cruise 2021 collection. Viard channeled the artist-poet's phantasmic approach to navigating space and time with a predominantly black and white line-up. "The precision and the poetry of Cocteau's film made me want to create a very clean collection, with a very clear bi-color, consisting of bright white and deep black."
Allover prints and puffed sleeves add a 60s fashion touch, and bold graphic tees nod to rock and roll.
Floral designs welcome spring; in combination with fishing nets and chokers, they get a punk tone. The entire collection is a careful balance between light and dark. We see piles of large, oversimplified necklaces, a white-trimmed longline tank adorned with Chanel graphics, a diamond arm cuff, and printed wide-leg jeans. Lots of fringes, in leather, beads, and sequins, T-shirts with model Lola Nicon's face as a rock star, worn with tweed suits trimmed with wide braids , and pointed silver Mary-Janes.
And that's how we come to the Chanel lip ring. While fashion houses have played with body modifications and face jewelry in the past, never before have they succeeded so perfectly in bridging the gap between logomania and the lasting influence of jewel-encrusted grills. Will we soon also encounter these in retail? We don't know for sure. We are sure that Chanel fans and real punks will find a way.
The fashion house also recorded six more outfits in a different special environment: Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's apartment. The series of black and white photos are by Dutch photographers Inez and Vinoodh and model Lola Nicon. With her well-cut mullet and smokey eyes, she breathes the 60s and 70s. It was in this house that Coco kept her beloved bestiaries - lions, female sphinxes, and deer - which have since become an enduring symbol of the powerhouse name.
