Fashion

CHANEL Renews Its Relationship with the World of Dance

It all started with a few dance lessons that Gabrielle Chanel took with Isadora Duncan and then Caryathis. And so her love for precision and movement pushed the great designer to collaborate with the greatest artists and choreographers of her time to channel beauty in all its glory. Her fascination with movement was mostly apparent through her inherent will to design the costumes of the dancers – all of which she intricately reworked on the dancers.

“Always remove, always take away. Never add anything… Nothing is more beautiful than the freedom of the body”, she once said.

And now, nearly a century later, the House’s affinity for the arts and dancing is still as strong as ever, as CHANEL will be the patron of the Opening Gala night of the Opéra de Paris’ new dance season, to be held on September 27th 2018.

After the presentation the Ballet Corps – an important tradition at the Opéra de Paris established by Serge Lifar, a dear friend of Gabrielle Chanel’s – Ohad Naharin’s Decadance will be performed.

Aurélie Dupont, director of the Opéra National de Paris since 2016 and Diana Vishneva, prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Ballet, will perform the pas de deux of Bolero, wearing costumes created especially by Karl Lagerfeld for CHANEL.

“Ravel’s Bolero has always been one of my most favorite pieces of music in the world,” says Lagerfeld, “it was the first classical record I bought when I was 16-years old.”

“The costume is the finishing touch that allows you to become the character,” adds Aurélie Dupont. “After weeks of rehearsing for a show, where we work on the positions and reflect on the role, putting on the costume allows us to completely metamorphose, to embody a role. Just like the Opéra de Paris, the House of CHANEL is an institution that is both classical and contemporary: it has an incredible heritage, but also a strength, a modernity and an open mind. For me, this partnership with the House of CHANEL for the Opening Gala of the dance season is so right.”



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