Exhibition Review: Gabrielle Chanel – Fashion Manifesto (V&A London)

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel is arguably one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20^th century. Her designs have shaped women’s wardrobe for over a century and her perfume Chanel No 5 remains as fresh and as iconic as when it was first launched in 1921. Even if most women have never had a Chanel dress, bag or jewellery, chances are she would have something in her wardrobe that bears an indirect imprimatur of the woman herself, perhaps a little black dress, a quilted shoulder bag or a string of fake pearls.

The V&A’s current exhibition Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto is the first major retrospective of Chanel here in the UK and chronicles Chanel’s career from her first shop in 1916 to her death in 1971. Chanel’s designs have always been characterised by comfort, simplicity, and ease of movement and she would time and again return to these three key points throughout her career.

Chanel’s background informed a lot of her work from the years spent in an orphanage under the care and education of nuns to being the mistress of wealthy men such as Boy Capel who crucially provided the funds for her to start her business and the Duke of Westminster whose interests in outdoor pursuits such as hunting, shooting and fishing influenced her use of “lowly” fabrics such as tweed and jersey in her designs.

The exhibition is set chronologically from Chanel’s beginnings as a milliner, to her successes in the 1920s and 30s, the war years then her comeback in the 1950s when she was up against the new guard as personified by the likes of Christian Dior. She also branched out into jewellery both fine and costume, working with established designers who helped turned her aesthetics into reality. The displays also showed that Chanel was a savvy businesswoman, the launch of her perfume Chanel No 5 led to the birth of a fragrance icon and ensured that she reached as wide a customer base as possible by expanding the No 5 range to include cologne, soaps & lotions then later branching out into skin care and cosmetics. Like other designers, she also extended her reach via licensing, for example the suit worn by Jacqueline Kennedy on that fateful day in Dallas, Texas in 1963 was designed by Chanel in Paris but made in the United States by a licensed company and reproduction of patterns in magazines for dressmakers.

The exhibition has all the class and style for which Chanel was famous. The displays are well laid out and even when the exhibition was busy, we were still able to see the displays properly. The cabinets enabled us to see the clothes both in the front and back and the flow allowed you to appreciate Chanel’s artistry without being overwhelmed. The interpretation stuck to the main thrust of the exhibition and crucially did not shy away from Chanel’s controversial behaviour during World War 2; was she collaborator or resistante? (Chanel with her constant re-writing of her history could have been either, or indeed both).

We also appreciated and liked the use of the Chanel font and colours which in our opinion enhanced the visitor experience. The recreation of the mirrored staircase at the end gave visitors the opportunity to feel that they were in the actual Chanel showroom in Paris.

What the V&A has given visitors is a parade of swooningly beautiful clothes that many women would give much to possess, even the early creations from the 1920s. What there is not is the crucial element in any garment: how does it look and move on the wearer? There are few images of the clothes being worn or sense of how a woman would look or move in what are some truly spectacular gowns. Shown on etiolated stiff little mannequins they lack a little of what must have been the drama and dazzle and admiration of anyone who saw or indeed wore them; which is a shame, as the exhibition itself says about an evening dress from 1918, Motion was key to Chanel’s unique style. There’s also little sense of Chanel the woman, who was in many ways her own greatest creation. Chanel the designer of iconic clothes who was almost mystically in accord with how women wanted to dress, Chanel the business woman, Chanel the setter or trends who came back triumphantly from post-war obscurity: but not Chanel the woman, who was in many ways her own greatest creation.

This is the second time in four years that the V&A has staged a blockbuster retrospective of an iconic designer, the first being Christian Dior in 2019 and we were fortunate to have visited that as well. However, we preferred the Chanel exhibition not only due to the reasons stated above but also to keeping the focus on the woman herself and her legacy.

Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto is on the V&A South Kensington until 10 March 2024. For more information, please visit: https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/gabrielle-chanel-fashion-manifesto

The bloggers visited the exhibition on 1 November 2023. Photos were taken by the bloggers.

Exhibition Review: Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion and Design (Ashmolean Museum)

The novels by Charles Dickens and black and white photos have led people to believe that the Victoria era period was dark and gloomy. Certainly, photographs of the period in black and white have failed to convey a sense of what it was really like colour wise during the late 19th century.

The Ashmolean’s current exhibition Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion and Design is an attempt to dispel the popular notion of the Victoria era as gloomy and devoid of colour. It opens with one of Queen Victoria’s mourning dresses as she wore black for the last 40 years of her life following the death of her husband Prince Albert. From then on, the displays seek to show that the Victorian era was full of colour and the Victorians themselves were obsessed with colour.

The exhibition demonstrates how interest in the natural world and the past, utilisation of science and technology, international expositions, foreign travel, and archaeology were all pivotal when it came to the Victorian era’s engagement with colour. The interest in the past especially with the Middle Ages and ancient civilisations sought to overturn long held beliefs such as the former being a drab and colourless era and that sculpture and buildings from the latter were never ever painted. Travels to Italy and France where many arts from the Medieval period survived and archaeology were crucial in supporting the thesis that the distant past was a colourful period. John Ruskin was particularly cited as a very influential voice when it came to discussions about the role of nature and the past.

Even more influential was the role of science and technology when it came to bringing colour to the masses. Previously certain colours such as purple and ultramarine (a shade of blue) were only derived from natural sources making them expensive and available only to the few. The discovery of chemical dyes and use of industrial waste to create a wide variety of colours meant that the shades which could only be worn by royalty and aristocracy were now within the reach of ordinary people. Fashion was quick to seize on this new technology and while men’s clothes outwardly became more sombre, colour was used through articles of clothing such as socks, waistcoats, and neckties.

Many of the displays were effective in showing the Victorians’ fascination with colour and with certain shades such as yellow and blue becoming trends not just with fashion but also for artistic and commercial reasons. One of the star displays, the painting Jove Decadent, Despres del ball by the artist Ramon Casas shows the juxtaposition of three main colours – green, yellow, and black well. Another was the role of travel where artists were attracted to a different environment that informed their creative output and filtered into public consciousness.

One interesting aspect we found with this exhibition was with regards to showing aspects of the fascination with colour that we would find questionable or tacky by today’s standards. There was the use of arsenic to develop the shade of green which is now seen as dangerous, hats decorated with the bodies of exotic birds or the parure of jewellery made from iridescent beetles. One wonders what Lady Granville thought of when she received the set from her husband, did she simply say “oh how sweet…. you shouldn’t have” through gritted teeth and wore it once to keep Lord Granville happy? A modern-day wife would demand for the receipt to exchange the gift to something more her liking however we don’t think this was an option for Lady Granville.

The exhibition closes with the American dancer and choreographer Loie Fuller and the British photographer Sarah Angelina Acland; the former was known for her creative use of stage lighting and colour techniques into her performance and costumes while the latter was known for her pioneering techniques in colour photography. The fact that both women were active during the late Victorian era and into the new century goes to show that this engagement with colour that the Victorians pioneered would continue into the twentieth century and beyond.

Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion and Design is on at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford until 18 February 2024. For more information, please visit: https://www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/colour-revolution-victorian-art-fashion-design

The bloggers visited the exhibition on 20 December 2023. Photos were taken by the bloggers.