Chanel and ‘Spencer’: A Royal Affair

Courtesy of Chanel

The House of Chanel has long been associated with the world of cinema, whether it’s for the red carpet or on-screen wardrobe. Gabrielle Chanel’s foray into the American film industry began in 1930 when she met Samuel Goldwyn, the owner of the MGM studios, who asked her to transform his stars into fashion icons. After a brief stint, which included meeting and befriending the likes of Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Gloria Swanson and other stars, her experience in Los Angeles was cut short as the studios were inappreciative of Chanel’s understated and refined allure.

However, French cinema embraced the Maison with arms wide open. Chanel’s modernity and timelessness birthed countless iconic relationships such as the one with a young Romy Schneider who was quoted saying, “When I put on my first ‘Chanel’, I realised I would never want anything else…(…) Chanel is a couturier like no other… Because it is a coherent, logical ‘organised’ whole: in the way we say the Doric order or the Corinthian order, there is a ‘Chanel order’, with its reasons, its rules, its rigour. It is an elegance that satisfies the mind even more than the eyes.”

“When I put on my first ‘Chanel’, I realised I would never want anything else…" - Romy Schneider

Other notable collaborations include Pedro Almodóvar’s High Heels (1992) in which Victoria Abril wears a Chanel suit from start to finish, and Callas Forever by Franco Zeffirelli (2002). In 2016, several outfits were created especially for Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively in Café Society. In 2018, a suit from the Métiers d’art 2016/17 Paris Cosmopolite collection was made for Isabelle Huppert in the film Greta. In Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), Chanel naturally found its place with the ambassador of the House, Margot Robbie.

This year, Chanel announces another special partnership in the world of cinema with ‘Spencer’ by Pablo Larraín – the story of an icon, Princess Diana, played by Kristen Stewart. She wears both clothes and jewels by Chanel, and in particular, a beige organza evening gown embellished with gold and silver round, oval or leaf-shaped sequins forming floral branches, look 82, from the Spring-Summer 1988 Haute Couture collection.

Chanel Beige Organza Evening Gown, Spring Summer 1988 Collection Look 82

In order to capture the essence of Pablo Larraín’s film as closely as possible, the House worked hand in hand with multi-award-winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran, who shares more about the collaboration here.

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What was the most memorable moment on set with Kristen in one of the Chanel looks?

“For me, although the Haute Couture dress is the most iconic, the red coat was the first costume we found that really created Diana for our movie. In our second fitting with Kristen in London, we put together the original red coat from the Chanel archive and the hat made for the movie by a London milliner and suddenly there we had found the look. It was not an exact replication of one of Diana’s Sandringham looks – but it was directly inspired – made up from different elements that worked on Kristen – this was the method throughout – we wanted to capture the spirit of Princess Diana’s style but not slavishly copy and the red coat was our starting point!”