Chanel realigns its logo with bridging catwalk at show focused on timeless skirt suit
Chanel realigns its logo with bridging catwalk at show focused on timeless skirt suit
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House deploys elegant visual allegory at Grand Palais to keep its name in lights during design interregnum. Designers come and go, but the Chanel tweed suit is for ever. That was the message from a show marking the 110th anniversary of haute couture at Chanel. The house is in the middle of more than a year of catwalk shows without a designer to take a bow – Virginie Viard made her final appearance last May, and her successor, Matthieu Blazy, will not make his first until October – so it is working overtime to keep the Chanel name in lights.
![[Models walk along curving, overlapping walkways in the light-filled Grand Palais]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e3653dacb1ac1cd557cdfced6db8e649705df25b/0_281_4885_2931/master/4885.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The catwalk was formed of two broad curving walkways, which together formed the double C that is instantly recognisable as Chanel. But instead of sitting back to back, as in the logo, the two walkways were teased apart into bridges curving up and over each other, interlinking to form a figure of eight in the shape of the infinity symbol.
![[Jennie Kim and Kylie Jenner sit in the audience]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c068cacc29b202d634ca57a8b82038db311e7786/605_89_4003_2402/master/4003.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
It was an elegant visual allegory for a business strategy that is focused on maintaining sales and profile during an extended interregnum. Conceived by the scenographer Willo Perron, the designer of Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball tour and of the floating stage for Rihanna’s 2023 Super Bowl half-time show, the catwalk was installed in the giant wrought-iron nave of the Grand Palais – itself a statement of Chanel’s status in French culture.
