French paintings were brought to life at the CHANEL Fall-Winter 2021/2022 Haute Couture show. Beginning with a feathered tea-length skirt paired with an oversized, structured blazer and ending with a bride throwing her bouquet into the crowd, the collection by Virginie Viard unveiled designs that surprise and delight. The show was set at the Palais Galliera in Paris, a modern fashion museum with Neo-Renaissance architecture that set the scene as an ode to CHANEL-collections-past. 

The fall haute couture collection combines soft brushstrokes inspired by movements of French painting with dresses blooming with English garden flowers. It experiments with colorful tweed suits embedded with glimmers of hand-stitched sparkle along with intricate dresses layered with delicate tulle. CHANEL ambassador Margaret Qualley is photographed in teasers to the show in a jacket and A-line skirt in multicolor tweed over a bustier in pink broderie Anglaise. The sequined tweed coat is meant to represent an impressionist painting, using brushstrokes as a template.

“There are dresses embroidered with water lilies, a jacket in a black tweed crafted from feathers with red and pink flowers,” said Virginie Viard.

“Because I love seeing color in the greyness of winter,” she continued, “I really wanted a particularly colorful collection that was very embroidered, something warm.”

The backdrop of the Palais Galliera was as theatrical as the collection itself. Located in the chic 16th arrondissement, the models emerged in between two columns and sashayed down a stone staircase, looping around the edge of the oval-shaped room, and walking back in front of the star-studded first row. 

After a year of digital fashion shows and canceled catwalks due to COVID-19, this show was a welcome spectacle celebrating fashion, art, and, of course, Paris. Director Sofia Coppola, former Vogue editor Anna Wintour, and Normal People actress Daisy Edgar-Jones were among the fashionably dressed attendees.

The models staggered themselves on the stone steps for the finale, with the veiled, retro bride front and center. As the rest of the designs left the stage, the gleeful bride made a final twirl and threw the bouquet into the first row: a dramatic finish to a diverting show.