Photo: Gorunway.com
Chanel taking to a street in Manchester, the post-industrial metropolis 160 miles from London in northern Britain, caused all sorts of a kerfuffle. Why? Virginie Viard revealed her own personal backstory for choosing to support the proudly edgy multi-layered working-class culture of the English town, and it included everything from its prowess in football to the Madchester music and clubbing scene (as it was famed in the ’80s and ’90s) to its historical status as the original powerhouse of textile mill manufacturing in the 19th century. “I like small towns,” she declared. “Not like London—it’s too much like Paris. My grandfather and grand-uncle managed the football team in Lyons. My grandfather and grandmother also worked in making fabrics there.”
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So there she nailed some of the unlikely multiple cross connections between her roots and the French luxury house (Lyons being her provincial hometown, the traditional supplier of haute couture fabric manufacturing), as well as to Coco Chanel herself, who apparently fell for English-made tweeds when she was involved with the Duke of Westminster and spending time at his Eaton Hall country estate outside Manchester. Then, there’s Viard’s own-generation love of Joy Division and the all the gritty music and arts energy that’s been characterizing this Northern rival to London since, well, forever.
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The Northern culture immersion began with a Chanel invitation to a Manchester United v Chelsea football match the night before the show (itself a North-South gladiatorial contest). Guests were issued with personalized No 5 (as in Chanel No 5) Man U red football jerseys to cheer on the home team. Result: Man U 2, Chelsea 1. Things kicked off to an auspicious start.
Photo: Gorunway.com
Rain is the other thing Manchester’s famous for—think of L.S. Lowry’s paintings of ‘matchstick’ people bent against the weather as they trudged to…
