The Palais Galliera reopens with the classic and revolutionary Chanel

For its reopening, the Palais Galliera in Paris is dedicating an exhibition to Gabrielle Chanel.

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• After two years of work, the Palais Galliera in Paris is reopening its doors.

• The Fashion Museum of the City of Paris is dedicating its first exhibition to Gabrielle Chanel, from October 1, 2020 to March 14, 2021.

• A true classic of French haute couture, the Chanel style has long revolutionized fashion.

What could be better than Chanel for the reopening of the Fashion Museum of the City of Paris?

After two years of work (largely financed by the house of Chanel), the Palais Galliera is about to reopen its doors with an exhibition dedicated to the French designer.

From October 1, 2020 to March 14, 2021,

, will present more than 350 pieces over an area of ​​nearly 1,500 m², including the astonishing new galleries on the ground floor.

An exhibition where evening dresses, famous suits and the famous 2.55 bag are presented in real cases, sublimating Gabi's legendary chic.

A certain elegance, a fashion classic.

And a little plan plan, right?

So yes, the lines are clean, the drape is perfect, the material play is dazzling ... But we are not going to lie, with our 21st century eyes which have since known Alexander McQueen or Iris Van Herpen, Chanel has a little side old France, very "Bernadette Chirac" (she will understand).

And yet that was not always the case.

Because for several decades, Coco represented a notable revolution in the female wardrobe.

The famous Chanel tailors.

- Gabrielle Chanel - Fashion manifesto © Pierre Antoine

"The chanelization of fashion"

This is, moreover, the aim of this exhibition, whose title

refers to two particular periods of the designer.

The first is anchored in the 1910s, at the beginning of Gabrielle Chanel's career, where very early on she strives to free the female body, while the corset still encircles the bust of women.

The designer in particular imagines softer cuts and more fluid materials to allow women to move and breathe (obviously a pretty good idea).

Practical, but chic clothes, inspired by sportswear and the men's wardrobe.

"She arrives with this radically different conception of feminine elegance, carried by notions of comfort, freedom of movement, naturalness, very new for the time", explains to

the co-curator Véronique Belloir .

Another highlight of his career, the year 1954 when Gabrielle Chanel, 71, returned to fashion after ten years of absence.

And what could be better than to mark the occasion with what will become his iconic piece: the suit.

Always in an idea of ​​comfort and freedom, she creates a two-piece set (which is reminiscent of the male costume), simple, stripped down, respecting the female anatomy.

The jacket does not emphasize the chest, and the skirt does not hinder the gait.

An unprecedented look that arouses real perplexity.

“It is not at all accepted, we do not understand very well what she wants to put in place with this famous tailor, which is a synthesis of everything she has put in place during the first part of her career », Specifies Véronique Belloir.

Success will follow, however, and so in 1957, the American daily

decrees: "We owe the great Gabrielle Chanel the chanelization of fashion, and this twice in a century".

A classic avant-garde

As underlined by the exhibition at the Palais Galliera punctuated by extracts from press articles, Chanel's contemporaries very quickly became aware of the wind of freshness that it brought.

In 1912, when she was still only a milliner, the

mentioned for the first time in its pages the hats of the young designer.

Four years later, the monthly

published three Chanel outfits in jersey, a fabric that was rarely used in the haute couture of the time.

“From the start, the press associated with its work concepts such as youth, fluidity, simplicity, casualness, all often accompanied by superlatives,” notes the co-curator of the exhibition.

Against the tide of her time, Coco is not for all that an eccentric, an extravagant and colorful designer.

On the contrary, she stands out for her taste for measure and detail.

A few sequins here, a few feathers there, and little or no embroidery.

As for the color, if a bright red sometimes awakens an evening dress, it prefers black, white or beige, which it declines to infinity.

Chanel moves the lines of course, but without excess.

"It is in the detail that she excels, and lets her fantasy, her imagination explode, cautiously restrained when it comes to the substance, because Gabrielle Chanel has a taste too classic to allow herself anything which disturbs the purity of her outline. », Estimates Princess Marthe Bibesco in the French edition of

in 1927.

Chanel the timeless

Beyond the fact of having upset the codes of its time, Chanel has succeeded in imposing its own conceptions of allure and elegance, and in inscribing its style in the long term.

“It has never been part of movements or trends.

Throughout her career she has kept her same principles through thick and thin, she has never deviated and it is very strong, a radically different vision, out of the time of fashion ”, explains Véronique Belloir.

A line of conduct that led him to the dream of many designers: to become "timeless".

Because her style a little "madam", and her famous tailor, the result of experiments at the beginning of the 20th century, still have a good place on the catwalks and still inspire the heirs of Chanel.

A chic and a simplicity that seduce Kirsten Stewart, muse of the label, as much as Bernadette Chirac, who was once at the forefront of fashion shows.

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