Viard displays quiet savoir-faire at first Chanel couture show

Designer nods to predecessors Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld at Paris fashion week

Karl Lagerfeld is no more, but Chanel remains the blockbuster event of any Paris fashion week.

That was the message of Virginie Viard’s first haute couture show since taking over the Chanel design studio from her boss of three decades. Concealed within the Grand Palais, the temporary show set was an epic three-floored circular library in the style – and on the scale – of the British Museum’s original Reading Room, the three levels linked by traditional sliding staircases. As befits Chanel, arguably a giant of French culture itself, the shelves were stacked with Stendhal and Flaubert.