[upbeat music]
- When I look at what Virginie is doing at Chanel,
it seems to me it's softer, it's more feminine.
It doesn't move quite as fast as Karl's Chanel did,
but maybe that's a good thing.
She worked for Karl for so many years.
She knew him better than anybody probably,
but she isn't trying to be Karl.
And I think that's so important to remember
that she's taken his legacy and she's taken Chanel
and she's making it absolutely her own.
[zip zipping] [gentle music]
- It's between yesterday and tomorrow.
We are in between.
And the good thing is that fashion can go
from the old world to the new world.
We have to adapt with the change of times.
And change is the most interesting thing
because you know the past of Chanel when I took over,
it was forgotten and now I have to push it.
Let the future goes.
- Karl made Chanel both a house that endures,
but a house that changes.
[gentle percussive music]
- Whilst Karl left this tremendous vacuum in the world
of fashion and style,
the establishment at Chanel handled everything
with the sense of really a seamless transition.
- Like Karl before her obviously Virginie is immersed
in the history of Chanel and the life that Gabrielle led
and how much of her personal life influenced her design.
- Gabrielle Chanel opened her first shop
on the Rue Cambon in 1910.
She parlayed her very considerable taste
into making these cardigans that are unfitted,
and they just have a tie at the waist
and loose fitting, fluid skirt,
that's cut scandalously short above the ankle,
and these are clothes that you can kind of work
and function in.
By the early twenties,
she has built up a couture house that really has a very,
very strong point of view.
- [Voiceover] It's hemline or rigid two inches
below the knee.
A gaily colored velvet print suit
with matching handbag has the style,
which for many women has become almost a classic uniform.
- Chanel was very unfiltered
and didn't hold back her opinions.
And I can imagine she would have had a lot
to say about Karl [laughing].
[electronic music]
- Everybody designs for an idea of a woman,
other woman can identify with it like it or not like it,
buy it or not buy it.
- Chanel was good for Karl,
but of course, Karl was extraordinary for Chanel.
- He just had this unbelievable instinct
for absorbing the zeitgeist.
- When I came here as a kid,
I expected Chanel to be really serious and stuffy.
And then as soon as I came,
it was like this fun family atmosphere.
Karl and everyone made me feel very welcome.
- He embraced everything.
He followed culture.
He followed film.
He followed literature.
He loved society.
He loved grand houses,
but he also always was watching
what was happening on the street.
And he always would say to me,
let's go for a walk.
And we would walk on the street
and just see what people were wearing.
You know, he was Superman and he was just an extraordinary,
extraordinary megaphone for fashion.
[somber music]
- When we heard about Karl passing away,
we were in shock.
It felt like a giant had left a stage.
He was so witty and sharp and funny and open.
I mean, he was the first to bring the street
to the catwalk and really,
really influenced every part of fashion.
- He's irreplaceable.
I mean, there just is no one else like him.
And,
I think for people that maybe don't know Karl
or didn't know Karl as well as I do,
because I was so lucky to know him over so many years,
that there was a very vulnerable side
to Karl and I just felt so privileged
to be inside that circle.
We genuinely had a friendship.
I certainly miss our conversations.
I miss his honesty.
I miss his exuberance.
I miss his wicked sense of humor.
His love of gossip.
I miss everything about him, really.
It was not a relationship that I'll ever be able to replace.
- With him passing, it's a beautiful legacy that he leaves,
which lives side by side with Gabrielle Chanel's legacy.
- I always remember sitting in
on an interview that one of our first ladies was giving
and they were asking which first ladies
that came before you most influenced you.
And she said back slightly annoyed.
I think I'll just be myself.
And I think that's Virginie's approach too.
- For Virginie taking on the legacy of Karl
and of Gabrielle Chanel was in a way easy.
- Everything is easy here.
- And hard at the same time.
- I'm always worried about maybe is it going to be okay?
Oh god.
- [Inez] More and more we can see it
that she's infusing her own style
and ideas into the collections.
- She always has that little extra something
that makes it more rock and roll and stylish.
- She always has an edge to her clothes.
- It's really beautiful without trying hard at all.
It just like happens to be incredibly elegant.
- Like Chanel, she thinks about clothes that she would want,
and that would enable her to look great
while living her life.
She's cool and not precious about it.
I think that's what I like about Virginie.
- I do my best, but if it doesn't work,
[speaking in French]
I don't know.
- Virginie is a very private person.
- [Interviewer] You have a life in the country as well?
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] And that's a simple life?
- Also.
[laughing]
- And she has a kind of cool exterior
because she has a mystique,
which I respect.
- [Interviewer] You're kind of like a Sphinx of fashion.
[speaking in French]
- [Interviewer] Yes, I think so.
- I like simple things, you know,
I like even to look at things
that I know that after one year you see them
in a different way.
- She wants to communicate through her work.
I find it so modern.
I find it so now,
to put into the light,
just the process of creation and the teamwork.
- [Inez] She is not in it for the fame,
for the attention.
She just wants people to feel good in what she makes.
- She loves to go into deep conversations.
She likes to talk.
She loves to listen to you to what you move.
And that takes time.
- But she also learned from working
with Karl is this idea of,
you know, it's only fashion.
It's not brain surgery.
- Or saving people.
- You know, we don't save lives. So let's have fun.
And tomorrow we make something else.
It's very playful.
When we work with Chanel.
[gentle French music]
- There is almost a telepathic connection with Virginie.
Like we kind of sense
what the feeling would be for our collection.
She's much less fashion reference.
We would go like, oh,
I remember this movie from the seventies.
And you know, when she crosses the street,
she's wearing this coat with that bag and whatever
and for her it's much more,
"no remember that feeling when you would go to a club
and you're wearing this amazing new coat
and it's super hot in the club,
but you don't want to take your coat off."
- You just keep it on and dance the whole evening.
- [Inez] When we're working on the fittings together,
the girl that designs the fabrics has as much input
as Virginie as the girl that does the jewelry or the bags.
- They know when it's a starting point
and they understand what I won't want or.
- It's a real team of all these amazing women
that are just doing it together.
I was thrilled when Virginie asked me
to come be a part of it.
For me, the couture is such an incredible tradition that,
I'm happy that it still exists
and nothing else is like that.
It was fun to see Virginie's references,
there were images of Gabrielle Chanel at balls and costumes.
We were in the studio a few days before the show
and the dress is you know,
a fraction of it's made.
And you just think,
how are they going to put this all together
by Tuesday, it's pretty incredible.
[orchestral music]
- [Anna] I'm very excited to get to have a tour.
Okay, we'll let you work.
- [Virginie] Okay.
- [Anna] Well done.
[speaking in French]
[crowd chattering] [orchestral music]
[electronic rock music]
[electronic rock music continues]
[audience applauding and cheering]
[upbeat electronic music]
- I'm inclined to think that in the work of Virginie,
Chanel would see it perhaps a slightly closer reflection
to her own principles of making woman friendly clothes
that you can move and live and exist in.
I think she would certainly see a shared mindset
of a woman designing for women.
- I'm doing things with her
that's the only important thing for me.
[upbeat electronic music continues]