Paris Fashion Week 2023: Chanel closed out with a burst of camellia blooms, Prada’s sister brand Miu Miu disrupted the runways, and Penelope Cruz reminisced about Karl Lagerfeld

Mar 9 , 2023

Models present creations by designer Virginie Viard, as part of her autumn/winter 2023-2024 women’s ready-to-wear collection show, for fashion house Chanel during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France, on March 7. Photo: Reuters

Chanel’s creative director Virginie Viard revisited the inimitable Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel’s obsession with the camellia flower for the luxury brand’s autumn/winter 2023-24 womenswear collection

Miu Miu’s rule-defying show bowled over front-row guests like Alexa Chung, while other attendees took to social media to complain about Paris’ strikes, which had some presentations starting late

Colossal camellias served as the ready-to-wear altarpiece for Chanel’s sparkling, bloom-inspired autumn display.

Meanwhile, Miuccia Prada’s baby sister brand Miu Miu – another headline show on Paris Fashion Week’s last day – presented a study in off-kilter creativity.

Here are some highlights of the autumn/winter 2023-24 collections as PFW comes to an end.

Chanel’s Camellia

Models present black-and-white creations from Chanel’s womenswear autumn/winter 2023-2024 collection during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, on March 7, with an oversized camellia installation in the background. Photo: AFP

It was the flower that launched a thousand designs. Legend has it that the camellia first became Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s obsession in 1913 when she pinned one to her belt – seduced, the house said, by its “simplicity, shape, purity and vitality”. Over a century later, the winter flower is still centre stage.

A model presents a creation featuring a camellia print from the autumn/winter 2023-24 womenswear collection by French designer Virginie Viard for Chanel during Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, on March 7. Photo: EPA-EFE

“Camellia is more than a theme, it’s an eternal code,” creative director Virginie Viard said. “I like its softness and its strength.”

A fluffy rendition of the camellia even featured on this jumper paired with shiny shorts and mesh tights for a textured look, plus a mini-bag also with a camellia design, during Chanel’s autumn/winter 2023-24 womenswear show at Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, on March 7. Photo: EPA-EFE

As ever, there was a restraint in Viard’s design aesthetic, for instance, in the use of a limited palette of whites, shadowy blacks and shades of pink. The camellia, too, was handled strictly, adorning pockets, buttons and jackets, prints or leather shoes.

But the ubiquitous sparkle of sequins and in plays in shape – slits in gowns, asymmetrical coats and swooshes of diagonal fabric on skirts – gave the collection motion.