CHANEL MARKS ITS GRAND RETURN TO THE RUNWAY WITH ITS SS25 COLLECTION

Coming after the late designer Karl Lagerfeld’s passing, the fashion industry remained quiet as kept. But when it was recently announced that follow-up creative director Virginie Viard was leaving the house as well, tensions continued to rise as everyone was waiting for the maison’s next moves. However, after a four year long hiatus, Chanel made its grands homecoming to Paris at the Grand Palais during fashion week, and its latest collection did not disappoint. 

Beginning in 2005, the Grand Palais has hosted numerous Chanel shows, with each set design fitting perfectly within the monument as well as within the show’s context. Since then, the palace has become synonymous with the house. Here, for its Spring/Summer’25 collection, the set included a gigantic open bird cage in the middle of the runway. In many ways, the open cage represented a new era for the house as it was winding up to take off for a new flight.

The looks themselves remained classic Chanel, both timeless and chic. Chiffron capes, slit skirts, embroidered shirt dresses, fringed jeans, and multicoloured feathered trench coats return to the runway as they harmonise in a choreographic ode to the house.

With Chanel still in search for a new creative director to follow Viard, Creation Studios is in charge of its current collections. In a press release, they explain that this collection was a tribute to the women who freed themselves of society’s gaze, just like Gabrielle Chanel did. “This flight is dedicated to them. We think of music-hall artist and literary figure Collette, to whom Gabrielle Chanel was a close friend, the garçonne movement that marked the Roaring Twenties, but also the aviatrixes who spoke out and helped change mentalities.”

And so, aviator jackets with Peter Pan collars, pinks and blue tweeds, along with pastel knits and black skirts take over the collection as a tribute to the house’s vast history and its women. Additionally, various VIP guests, many of them incredibly talented women in the entertainment industry, sat across the front row. Global Kpop-act Jennie from BLACKPINK, academy-winner Lupita Nyong’o, and French popstar Angèle, to name a few.

For the show’s finale, singer, and Chanel ambassador, Riley Keough sat swinging in the cage performing a cover of Prince’s ‘When Doves Cry.’ Wearing head-to-toe black Chanel, the singing may have marked the end of the runway, but it symbolises a grand new flight for Chanel.