The dresses dazzle by fleeing the light.
Luxury is adorned with reserve, even austerity.
The stars or even princesses, from Marlene Dietrich and Romy Schneider to Grace Kelly, who one day - one evening - magnified these exposed outfits have disappeared, but the dresses have survived them, eternal.
What a lesson at the Palais Galliera with the Gabrielle Chanel exhibition which opens this Thursday: it's not fashion that is ephemeral, it's us!
All that remains here is the pure power of the fold, the fabric, the color - and again, often muted, from ivory to black, well over fifty shades ... - without flesh and yet so alive.
What a paradox that this exhibition entitled "Gabrielle Chanel, fashion manifesto", one of the cultural events of the start of the school year, which celebrates the reopening of the Palais Galliera, after two years of work which made it possible to double the exhibition area of the museum. of the City of Paris, temple of fashion.
We are far here from the rowdy and trendy Chanel of Karl Lagerfeld.
At the antipodes of the frenzy of the podiums.
A lesson in things and maintenance.
"Manifesto", as we say of an artistic movement.
If the house of Chanel is a partner and financed the work of the museum, the idea is not, as for the Christian Dior exhibition to the immense success at the Museum of Decorative Arts in 2017-2018, to shine a mark from its foundation to today, but to return to the origins.
The 167 models on display - only a few rare pieces that the Metropolitan Museum in New York had to lend, which remained in the United States because of the pandemic, are missing - were all created by Mademoiselle, Gabrielle Chanel (1883-1971), from 1916 to his dead, the year of his last parade.
And this is his first retrospective.
She works on her own body
No need to be a specialist, we don't all have this luxury: each piece of fabric provokes the eye, as we are instinctively captivated by a silhouette or a landscape.
It's beautiful but first of all it's true.
In the sense that Gabrielle Chanel sought the truth of a woman.
Hers.
She doesn't even need to be a specialist: she doesn't know how to sew or draw, and works directly on her own body.
To adjust, to feel good, to be able to move, to raise an arm, "to remain impeccable without worrying about the clothing", explains Véronique Belloir, one of the two curators of the exhibition.
It is the adventure of a self-made woman who wears a tie and pants at the age of twenty, her hands in her pockets, which a woman must not allow herself.
Chanel wears Chanel.
Creative and unique model at the start.
Whose line never deviates: "You have to be yourself".
A sentence that is not an easy advertising slogan at the beginning of the 20th century: “The woman is still the showcase of her husband's social success,” recalls the commissioner.
To dress it, we do not think of its comfort, nor the natural.
The feminine clothing imposes the corset.
Gabrielle Chanel is built against ”.
No need to torture yourself to be elegant
“Her clothes do not show off the forms,” explains Véronique Belloir./LP/Valentin Cebron
For herself, and against diktats that will pollute fashion, from her time and up to ours: “Her clothes do not show shapes, it leaves room for the body, for different types of femininity.
We are far from the slender women of Poiret, ”adds the historian.
In practice: no chest darts, little marked waist, skirts which rest on the precise point of the hips "where there are bones", smiles the expert, showing us almost.
No need to torture yourself to be elegant.
They stand by themselves, these clothes.
The legend Coco - it comes from nowhere or almost - and its dark side - assertive anti-Semite, she collaborated in 1939-1945, including horizontally, sorry for the triviality in a world of muslin, with the German occupier - are not discussed in the exhibition.
The brief biographical sketches really say as little as possible.
Making a ten-year-old white - his house, closed during the war, would not reopen until 1954 - as fascinating as a black hole.
Silence.
Besides the dresses, suits, coats speak for themselves.
It's stunning to almost always do the same thing, but always in an imperceptibly different light, like Monet and his cathedrals or his millstones.
Everything seems so contemporary
Gabrielle Chanel never gives in… to any fashion: “She never succumbs to exoticism or to revisiting past historical periods like many designers.
When she chooses a subject, she keeps it all her life.
We are never in the frou-frou.
The ornament is almost invisible, always integrated into the cut, even in evening dresses.
And every touch of eccentricity is tempered by monochrome, ”explains Véronique Belloir.
Everything seems so contemporary.
"It's because she is out of time," adds the latter.
And beyond prejudices: she loves tweed, rather popular with men and even upper bourgeoisie hunters, which she combines with women.
Sublimating an ordinary fabric, such as jersey, is her favorite game.
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The tour de force of this exhibition also lies in the variety of mannequins behind the windows who take on various forms, nature, sometimes holding their hands on their hips or slightly behind.
The dresses live.
Photos and film clips show the handover: after Mademoiselle appears Marilyn, who languidly confided that she only sleeps with a few drops of Chanel n ° 5.
"Perfume is the extension of her fashion, adds Véronique Belloir," she chooses a very pure, minimalist bottle, just a number as a name, and the perfume is an abstraction, not seeking any note taken in nature ".
In 2021, the most famous bottle in the world will be a century old.
Definitely timeless.
"Gabrielle Chanel, fashion manifesto"
, Palais Galliera, Fashion Museum of the City of Paris (16th century), Tuesday-Sunday 10 am-6pm, 9 pm Thursday-Friday, 12-14 euros from October 1 to March 14 , www.parismusees.paris.fr
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