Lagerfeld successor sees no need to rewrite the book

­Virginie Viard has had her first show for Chanel after the death of Karl Lagerfeld, who was creative director for 36 years.

Designer Virginie Viard walks the runway during the Chanel Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2019 2020. Picture: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

When a new creative director at an established fashion house is appointed, they usually want to create a complete revolution for their first collection.

Not so at Chanel, where ­Virginie Viard has taken the ­mantle from Karl Lagerfeld, who died in February and had held the position for 36 years.

On Tuesday in Paris at the Grand Palais she took an understated and refined approach to announcin­g that there was a new artistic­ force driving the house.

A creation by Chanel at the Grand Palais show that turned into a giant library.

The Chanel Women's Fall-Winter 2019/2020 Haute Couture collection fashion show in Paris.

This was Viard’s first haute couture collection for Chanel in her own right, having worked closely with Lagerfeld on the house’s haute couture collections since 1997. Among those in attendance were Vogue editor Anna Wintour and Australian actors Margot Robbie and Phoebe Tonkin.

Chanel’s fashion show sets have become increasingly extrav­agant and inventive in recent years and Viard kept up the trad­ition with a two-storey circular library­ constructed inside the Grand Palais.

The late Karl Lagerfeld with his successor Virginie Viard.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour, left, with Australian actor Margot Robbie, centre, and actor Phoebe Tonkin at Chanel’s Paris show. Picture: Kamil Zihnioglu/AP

Models sported simple ponytails and minimal makeup. Some wore large round reading glasses and many outfits were accessor­ised with modest flat shoes. The dominant silhouette was tall and narrow, with dresses and skirts that often went to the floor in rich, embellished tweeds. In keeping with the house’s codes there was plenty of black, but other dark colours such as navy and aubergine also featured.

There was plenty of black in the Chanel show.

The dominant silhouette was tall and narrow, with dresses and skirts that often went to the floor.

And then there was colour — the palest pinks, deep purples, fuchsia and rich emerald green that almost spoke with raised voices in this discreet but self-assure­d Chanel library Viard has created.

For Toni Maticevski, the catwalk is about connection. The Melbourne designer showed his ready-to-wear resort collection in Paris’s Palais de Tokyo during the city’s haute couture week. He makes all the samples himself by hand and for this outing added about a third of one-off couture pieces.

“My main objective with doing shows is just to re-engage on that emotional level,” he told The Australian. “To have that connectedness to the brand, to the story … It never really equates to sales or more publicity, but it definitely engages in a different way.”

David Meagher travelled to Paris as a guest of Chanel