Celebrating the pure joy of creativity, Virginie Viard gathers diverse talents in a single gesture for the Chanel Spring 2022 Haute Couture show opened by Charlotte Casiraghi on horseback, echoing the equestrian world dear to Gabrielle Chanel.

The décor, a nod to the aesthetics of Universal Exhibitions, acted as a framework for the show where Creative Director Virginie Viard felt very free. “These geometric shapes made me want contrasts, a great lightness and a lot of freshness: ethereal dresses that float as if suspended. Lots of flounces, fringes, macramé, bright lace, iridescent tweeds, colourful jewelled buttons.”

Luminous silhouettes float amidst geometric structures in a graphic setting conceived by Xavier Veilhan with a live musical performance by Sébastien Tellier. Femininity, with a pink tweed jacket with white stripes, straps composed of white braid embroidered with beads or silver chains, two-tone Mary-Janes with heels inspired by the 1920s revisited via the 1980s, and finely geometric embroidery, as if echoing the décor.

All of the House of Chanel’s embroidery partners collaborated on this collection, “one of whose key pieces is a dress entirely embroidered by Lesage with constructivist camellias in black, white and coral beads, worn with a little black jacket,” Virginie Viard points out before concluding: “These references also belong to Gabrielle Chanel, of course. It’s like a conversation that crosses time.”