Celebrating personal connections through fashion cruise shows
More luxury houses, from Chanel to Gucci, are hosting their cruise shows in cities historically linked to their heritage to showcase their personal connection through design and textiles.
For the recent Chanel Cruise 2023-24 show, for instance, creative head Virginie Viard picked Los Angeles, exploring a significant connection to Coco Chanel’s works in Hollywood films.
In 1931, the famed Hollywood producer Sam Goldwyn (who believed that only Coco Chanel, a French, could replace Hollywood’s ostentatious glamour with genuine style) invited the celebrated couturier to visit Hollywood. With her designs, Goldwyn felt Chanel would bring “class” to Hollywood. Soon after, actor Gloria Swanson was seen in a Chanel gown in the 1931 film, Tonight Or Never.
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The 9 May cruise show paid a tribute to the city, with the showcase titled An Ode To The City Of Angels. Around the same time, a new Chanel boutique was opened in Beverly Hills (the largest in the US). Highlighting the founder’s legacy of dressing movie stars on- and off-screen in the 1930s, as well as the house’s modern-day ties to Hollywood, Viard staged the show on a set behind Paramount Pictures Studios.
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Bringing together French chic with Los Angeles athleticism, the designer presented a collection that included running shorts, beaded bodysuits, star-shaped minaudieres, trainers worn with leg warmers, besides a section of ensembles dedicated to old Hollywood (like sequinned blazers, sunset-ombre hued totes and trouser suits).
