Paris fashion week show sticks to looks from label’s past in a rejection of throwaway culture
“You don’t need to know a lot about fashion to understand a Chloé show,” the fashion house’s creative director, Natacha Ramsay-Levi, recently told Paris Vogue. This is key to the success of Chloé, founded in 1952 and with a stellar designer alumni including Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Phoebe Philo and Clare Waight Keller. Chloé is interesting enough to be cool, but never so cool as to be intimidating. It is the Paris fashion week channel for contemporary culture’s obsession with the allure of French style.
Now in her fifth season at Chloe, 39-year-old Ramsay-Levi made a bold statement by making it clear she had almost nothing new to say on the matter of getting dressed. Timeless chic and individual style have always been more important than trend in the French philosophy of style, and this season Chloé, as the ultimate French-girl label, gave a Gallic shrug to novelty and trend.