Snowy Linlithgow provides a showcase for traditional crafts with a Lagerfeld twist
In a letter to his wife Clemmie from the Duke of Westminster's Scottish estate in October 1927, Winston Churchill wrote admiringly of the prowess of a fellow member of the duke's party. "She fishes from morning to night, and in two months has killed 50 salmon," he noted.
Her name was Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel who as the lover of the duke spent long summers in the Highlands between 1924 and 1931.
On Tuesday night the Parisian house of Chanel upped sticks to celebrate its little-known Scottish connections with a catwalk show titled "Paris-Edimbourg".
Karl Lagerfeld has staged shows in St Tropez, Shanghai and the gardens of Versailles. But proved that for sheer atmosphere it is hard to beat a glorious Scottish ruin on a snowy night. In the courtyard of Linlithgow Palace, fire baskets raged around a fountain which Scottish legend says flowed with wine to honour Bonnie Prince Charlie's visit in 1745.
Linlithgow was the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots, who became queen consort of France, and Franco-Scottish links were woven through the evening. The army of Scottish umbrella-bearers sheltering guests from the snow were issued with Chanel cologne and instructions to wear no other. Trays of champagne alternated with earthenware pitchers of hot ginger and whisky. In temperatures around -4C, the latter were more popular.
Lagerfeld updated the 1920s Scottish country house aesthetic which beguiled Coco with a phalanx of modern references. Tartan came as an allusion to punk, worn with studded boots; as a throwback to the Lagerfeld-designed Chanel tartans of the 1980s with It model Cara Delevingne in a Madonnaesque silhouette of slouchy dancer's jumper, cute short skirt and thick tights. There was a nod to the tartans loved by Alexander McQueen in the long coats of gothic grandeur.
Lagerfeld said before the show he had been studying Scottish history because he "liked to arrive informed". It showed. Even beyond the obvious – the 2.55 bags given a sporran twist, the tartan caps – there was a toughness in the warrior-like eyeliner, the flat boots, the layers that felt indigenous to these parts, even paraded before 350 guests flown in from around the world for a show conservatively estimated to have cost £2m.
Pearls, instead of being strung around the neck in Rue Cambon fashion, hung pear-shaped from ears as they would have done when this courtyard was peopled by kings and queens. The show closed with a red-haired model in a high-collared snowy white gown, as if the ghost of Elizabeth I was once again vanquishing that of her cousin Mary.
Scotland was an inspiration for the most iconic of Coco's creations, the elegant suit in tweed – or bouclé, as it was known in her Paris ateliers. While staying on the duke's estates, Chanel, with her eye for elements of menswear that could be appropriated to modernise women's fashion, took to borrowing the Duke's tweeds. Photographs show her in her Scottish attire: dressed in a man's tweed jacket, long cashmere cardigan, trousers and sturdy boots, several dogs weaving around her feet. Liberating women from corsets and strictures to give them ease of movement was at the core of Chanel's design philosophy, and she embraced the freedom of country clothes designed for outdoor life.
Chanel grew fond of Scottish tweed, with its irregularities and natural suppleness, and began sourcing fabrics from a local tweed mill to be made into soft two-piece skirt suits for her Parisian house. She would gather leaves, moss and earth from her walks in the Scottish countryside, take them to her tweedmaker and ask him to incorporate those colours in the weave.
Chanel's vision of an elegant tweed suit, now a byword for Parisian chic, was a radical move at the time. Her French workshops were mystified by her enthusiasm for the rustic fabric. But Chanel persisted, making tweed a signature fabric of the house. In 1927, American Vogue reported that "Chanel, an important influence on modes, whose clothes are invariably simple, practical, and beautiful, is making a feature of models of Scotch tweed in her recent collections."
The Linlithgow show also celebrated the economic legacy of Chanel's love affair with the country. In October this year Chanel acquired Barrie Knitwear, a Scottish specialist that has long been a manufacturer of Chanel cashmere. The deal saved 176 jobs in the Hawick mill, threatened with closure after owner Dawson International was placed in administration in August.
Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel's president of fashion, described the deal as "natural, as the factory has worked with us for more than 25 years … through this acquisition we reaffirm our commitment to traditional expertise and craftmanship, and our wish to safeguard their future."
It was also a shrewd business move for a label that relies on knitwear for around 30% of its ready to wear sales. The message of the Metiers d'Art series of catwalk shows, of which this was one, is to underscore the artistry and skill that underscore the Chanel brand – and to remind the industry of the role Chanel plays in sustaining small-scale producers who would otherwise struggle to stay afloat in an industry increasingly dominated by fast fashion.
While Scotland made an impression on Chanel, the designer left her mark on Scotland in turn. In her biography of Chanel, Justine Picardie, editor of Harpers Bazaar and author of a biography of Chanel which examines her links with Scotland, writes that the designer decorated her Scottish mansion, Rosehall, with hand-blocked French wallpaper and installed the first bidet in the Highlands.
• This article was amended on 5 December2012. The original subheading placed the Chanel show in Edinburgh rather than Linlithgow. This has been corrected.