Chanel designer departs despite soaring revenue
The end of Virginie Viard’s five-year-long creative director tenure has been announced, marking the end of a chapter for the heritage maison.
Virginie Viard, the creative director at Chanel and an instrumental figure in shaping its output for three decades, has announced she’s departing her position at the heritage French house after five years.
The departure of Viard, a protégé of industry icon and former Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld who took the helm after his death in 2019, was announced on June 6. It came days after the maison released its 2023 year-end figures, with an annual profit of US $19.7 billion, up 16 per cent from the year before.
“Chanel confirms 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,” a statement from the brand read. “A new creative organisation will be announced in due course. Chanel would like to thank Virginie Viard for her remarkable contribution to Chanel’s fashion, creativity and vitality.”
Since her 2019 debut, Viard’s Chanel became known for its elegant silhouettes and visual softness compared to the more dramatic and theatrical designs of Karl Lagerfeld, which made Chanel a pop culture staple. Viard was also known for her reverence to the designs of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, who founded the brand in Paris in 1910. Gabrielle Chanel’s tweed suits were one of her first inventions and became coveted around the world for providing an innovative and androgynous take on womenswear. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor were among those who helped the brand’s avant-garde silhouettes become known around the world. A reverence for this era could be seen in Viard’s work, including at Chanel’s recent resort 2025 show in Marseilles, where the button-up tweed jacket was seen in different vibrant colours, and her haute couture spring/summer ’24 show, which prioritised the buttons on Chanel’s suits.
It was less common for Viard to pay homage to Lagerfeld’s work, but occasional nods to her predecessor were done in considered ways. Autumn/winter ’19/’20 haute couture, her first for the brand, showed in a mock library space that evoked Lagerfeld’s beloved home library at his Paris apartment. Chanel spring/summer ’22 featured logo-covered swimsuits, dangling jewellery and monochromatic silhouettes that recalled Lagerfeld’s famous runways in the ’90s, where runway icons Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer found their feet.
Nevertheless, Viard’s vision was confidently her own, and involved the introductions of new It-pieces. Her first accessory, the 19 handbag, debuted in 2019 and is a soft-edged tote which builds on the silhouette of Chanel’s famous 11.12 handbag. Viard’s designs coincided with conversations about the importance of female creative directors at major brands, for their inherent understanding of wearability when making womenswear.
The wearability in Viard’s work was no doubt a reason for the maison’s soaring sales figures and global clientele; under Viard, the brand has hosted resort collections in Manchester, Los Angeles, Monaco and Dakar, making Chanel the first French maison to show a collection in sub-Saharan Africa. Viard’s final collection, haute couture autumn/winter ’24/’25, will take place on June 25 in Paris as part of haute couture fashion week.
Naturally, fashion is abuzz with speculation about who’ll fill Viard’s creative director position. Whoever is appointed to lead Chanel will inherit a brand with of the biggest legacies in all of fashion, one which Virginie Viard played an instrumental role in shaping.