Virginie Viard is stepping down from her duties as the artistic director at Chanel. It’s a position that the designer has held for the past five years, as part of a three-decade career at the French fashion house.
Viard was best known as Karl Lagerfeld’s closest creative confidant and his number two; she took over the creative reins at Chanel after he passed away in 2016. In a statement, Chanel said that they “confirm the departure of Virginie Viard after a rich collaboration of five years as artistic director of fashion collections, during which she was able to renew the codes of the house while respecting the creative heritage of Chanel, and almost 30 years within the house”. The Chanel team also thanked Viard “for her remarkable contribution to Chanel’s fashion, creativity, and vitality”. They added that a new creative organisation would be announced soon.
During her tenure as artistic director, Viard worked to continue Lagerfeld’s design legacy while also infusing her youth-minded approach, introducing designs that attempted to speak to a new generation of Chanel customers – one with a discerning eye and a penchant for playful yet pragmatic clothes. Looking back at her last three collections, shown in Manchester, Marseilles and Paris – by way of a theatrical, manmade boardwalk meant to evoke Deauville, France – it’s now apparent that they may have represented some sort of a swan song trilogy; all of them were locations that held special creative meaning to Viard. These places inspired her and carried her through her prolific career at Chanel.
Predictably, rumours about who will replace her are already swirling, with one designer in particular, Hedi Slimane – who is currently the artistic director at Celine – being named as the top contender. It will be an exciting new dawn for Chanel, but Viard’s immense talent and vision for the future of the house will be missed. Having a woman at the helm of Chanel likely would have made the house’s founder proud. Here’s to Viard and whatever fashion space she conquers next.
