September 28, 2017 |
After the surprise departure of British designer Clare Waight Keller as designer at Chloé last season, the French fashion house welcomed Natacha Ramsay-Levi to the helm, after she quit her post as creative director of women’s ready-to-wear at Louis Vuitton; a position she’d held since 2013.
Great CV, big boots to fill: so did reality live up to the hype? Yes. To a small show capacity – many magazines were restricted to one ticket each – Ramsay-Levi showed a line-out of peasant dresses, pelmet-style minis and snappy trousers with overstitched pocket details – so far, so Chloé
Then it got interesting: three flute-hem snappy frocks in white with naive, flower-sprig prints had retailers nodding in approval. Why? Well, they’re not black! The colour black, buyers tell us: “just doesn’t sell well online,” it’s “too flat”, black works “better in a shop.” One turquoise – possibly velvet – all-in-one was killer. The cowboy boots and buckled shoes were too. Let’s see what bags she’ll create; they bring in huge money for the house.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd Evans
