Kristin Scott Thomas, Penelope Cruz and the day midlifers ruled Paris Fashion Week
The Chanel show opened with a short but glossy black-and-white film co-starring Brad Pitt and Penelope Cruz as lovers on a tryst (it doesn’t sound as good when you say minibreak) in Deauville, the once-fashionable northern France coastal town where Coco Chanel launched her first boutique in 1912.
Whether or not this scenario strikes you as the last word in romantic glamour largely depends on how you feel about Pitt and Cruz. Also, are the pair propositioning the 20-something waitress to join them for some fun and games? And are we prudish for caring?
The audience lapped it up, though that could partly be because Cruz, a friend of the house, was in the front row, along with Vanessa Paradis, Margaret Qualley and Charlotte Casiraghi.
What’s interesting is that while many brands devote a lot of energy into wooing either Gen Z TikTok icons you’ve never heard of or elderly legends who would never wear their clothes in real life, Pitt and Cruz fall into neither cohort. Mid-life, and looking great, there was something profoundly French and quite heartening about their confected story.
Chanel, like Hermès, is one of those houses that isn’t interested in pandering to marketing fads the way other brands feel they need to. As Karl Lagerfeld discovered in his 30 years as the head of Chanel, its founder, Coco Chanel, has a backstory that keeps on giving. Mine those archives with sufficient creativity and finesse, and the customers will keep coming.
These are precisely the tactics Virginie Viard, Chanel’s current creative director, adopted for autumn/winter 2024. Against giant screens depicting shadowy figures on Deauville’s beach, models drifted along the catwalks in large-brimmed straw hats, and slim maxi coats – an outline vaguely reminiscent of the post-Belle époque era when Coco was just getting going.
Viard made it all seem modern and wearable, tossing in some early David Bowie silhouettes and mixing them with lovely tactile wools and springy tweeds. Not for her the oversized proportions still popular elsewhere. Instead her skirts flare slightly to below the knee or mid calf.
Trousers are either long, but not exaggeratedly so, or cropped above the ankle. Knitwear is overtly smart: three-piece knitted gilets, skirts and cardigans, glittery for evenings, or contrast-trim boyfriend cardigans with matching wide trousers. Very Coco circa 1920. But then, as anyone who has seen Fashion Manifesto, the V&A’s Chanel exhibition can testify, so much of what Chanel designed still looks relevant.
Knee boots are worn with most outfits, either platforms or co-respondent. The latter made even the models’ legs look a bit chunky, but for the most part this was a flattering, coherent collection, filled with once-in-a-lifetime buys such as the pea coats, herringbone-print silks and matching jackets and waistcoats. Belts came with almost everything – some narrow with a bow buckle. As for that cash cow, the Chanel bag, classic as ever (no gimmicky new styles this time) – it adds a dash of colour to many looks, and elsewhere is matched to coats rather than shoes.
Viard isn’t always reliable, but with this grown-up, masculine-meets-feminine show, she seemed to know exactly where she was going.
Miu Miu
If it’s coat or suit inspiration you’re after, Miuccia Prada has some compelling, shorter alternatives at Miu Miu, where Kristin Scott Thomas, rapidly finding a parallel career as a fashion muse, was on the catwalk, along with Qin Huilan, a 70-year-old Shanghai-based doctor with a penchant for Miu Miu and Prada. According to Huilan’s own Instagram account, she only recently signed up to the app, after her son showed her how. She began posting pictures of herself in her favourite outfits – and just like that, Miu Miu invited her to be in the show.
Here, the blazers are narrow-waisted but wide in the shoulder, and the fabrics are more structured – grey flannel rather than Chanel’s soft tweeds.
But unusually, the two houses found plenty of common ground. The skirt suit is back at both. Miu Miu’s come in punchy shades of lime or purple as well as grey. Knits are as smart as can be – Miu Miu’s double-breasted navy tailored cardigan would take you anywhere. Knee-length prom skirts with clusters of big floral prints are toughened up with lace-up boots and bomber jackets.
Normally, Miuccia Prada loves to subvert classics but there wasn’t much subversion going on here, unless you count the orange, cerulean or Kelly green tights, which have been seen on other catwalks, too. Maybe she finds the old standards reassuring these days.
Fake-fur jackets and ankle-length coats are served up as the new status symbol in much the same way real fur once was. Audrey Herpburn’s boat-neck little black dress (complete with elbow-length black gloves) is revived in a straight replay.
Both Scott Thomas and Qin wore grey coats: Qin’s was fitted, double-breasted, embellished with silver flowers; KST’s a darker charcoal, unstructured, with a single placement of silver flowers. The micro message: coats come in myriad styles these days; focus on quality rather than whether it’s “on trend”. The macro: style has no age limits.
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