Color analysis of Chanel Spring Summer 2022 Ready-to-Wear. Expert Article by Guillaumette Duplaix, Color Specialist, Executive Director, Global Editor-at Large at RUNWAY MAGAZINE.
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In my article I’m going to explain the color trends chosen by the CHANEL house for Spring Summer 2022 season, and I’ll explain the Looks of the Spring Summer 2022 CHANEL collection. The choice of colors is not as easy as you imagine, it is based on the personal and social history of the house or the designer.
To market our creations, we must listen, feel, hear to your partners, be very attentive to another country culture and trandition etc.
When I watch a fashion show, I know that behind it there are several months of hard work, not just on the looks, on the strategic choices, the ambitions of the house or the designer.
Regarding the color codes, we will see if the stakes remain as high.
My first intention is to understand the vision of CHANEL house, what the designer is trying to express with her color choices for this Spring Summer 2022 collection.
Presentation of the Colors & Nuances of CHANEL Spring Summer 2022 ready-to-wear collection in 2 parts:
1) CHANEL trends. The strategic choices, ambitions.
2) Symbolism and interpretation of CHANEL color choices in history and in society.
At first glance, we see BLACK and WHITE
These colors used by History, Symbols, Fashion. Black and White have always been “the elegance of Color” for CHANEL house. And also “Refuge”
colors… BLACK is the addition of all the colors, WHITE is the absence of colors.
Is the CHANEL house Chromophobic?
The chromophobie is rejection of colors or coloring.
For this category of people Color is arbitrary, useless, disorganized in front of WHITE, BLACK.
Color becomes dangerous because it is autonomous, spontaneous in the face of the absence of Colors which remains stable.
Color is therefore is something what characterizes the lower nature.
I had the experience myself by coming to a rendezvous rue Cambon with lots of colors.
The reactions were very funny to observe: surprise, judgment, even threat of spirit.
GOLD color
This look is always on a black base, but with small dots of color and above all, it serves an addition of extreme elegance of GOLD on the garment as well as the accessories.
From the XIIth century GOLD gradually became the “good” yellow, a sign of wealth, beauty, prosperity, associated with divine worship. Probably the reasons why CHANEL house is adding GOLD in a creative way to its classic models.
With this intention CHANEL house think it will reach almost all people, all social layers …
Are you sure ?
We must not lose sight of the fact that the color GOLD is part of the YELLOW palette.
It shines! Symbol of wisdom, glory… Color of the sun. Yellow is the color of ambivalence and contradiction. Associated with optimism and pleasure. But for 2000 years, YELLOW
also represented betrayal, duplicity and jealousy.
Read more about YELLOW color HERE.
Nuances Blue Grey
Several understated looks in this classic blue grey shade are probably to highlight the accessories.
CHANEL house uses this shade of BLUE more discreet than the color itself. And it is probably for the same reason as BLACK and WHITE.
For CHANEL house the shade of BLUE will be less “vulgar” than the BLUE itself. We find the CHANEL caution regarding colors.
Certainly! A nuance will make the debate more diplomatic but traditions remain.
BLUE is very popular in Europe, especially in France as well as in the United States.
It is not the same for the countries of Asia as well as the shared Eastern countries.
Read more about BLUE color HERE
CHANEL “takes risks” with this model which mixes GOLD, stripes, dark blue, light blue.
Except that we have a “reading” problem regarding this look :
Checkerboard dark BLUE / light BLUE.
A volume created by the morphology of a wearer. We have a reading from top to bottom.
Then we come back to the top, attracted by the stripes which give another rhythm.
And we finish on the GOLD sleeves which gives the impression of having been “asked” by chance.
The result gives an anarchic aspect.
It’s not a question of size, taste, etc.
In addition we look at the very wise, very careful CHANEL models and we see this model arriving which gives the impression of a convulsive improvisation (???).
COLORS BLACK WHITE
CHANEL Spring Summer 2022 collection has several BLACK looks with thin stripes in primary colors : yellow, blue, red and white.
We go back to BLACK, the base of the CHANEL house.
Despite a feeling of “déjà vu” from other designers, these looks are easy to read. BLACK with two materials is not violent. We find very thin horizontal stripes of primary colors.
What surprises me the most is white background with stripes in very light pink, yellow, blue shades.
Collection has several looks with stripes but we have an impression of “Negative Photo” of the previous looks.
Surprising, no? Personally, I loved it ! As long as we keep this “mise en scène”.
If CHANEL house offers these two looks together, I am sure that the “positive / negative” rendering can be a success.
What do you think?
PINK COLOR
CHANEL house has decided to present the PINK color as a color chart.
PINK is the only case where the washed white color does not have the same name as its dominant shade. We don’t say “pale red”, we say “PINK”.
Did you know that in the Middle Ages, the PINK was the symbol of the virility of men.
WHY ?
BLUE, the divine color of the Virgin Mary, is associated with girls. And PINK was a color that considered to be a pale virile red, is the prerogative of boys in the Middle Ages.
History of PINK in Fashion.
PINK made its entry with crinoline dresses and then with Christian Dior, notably with its first “Corolle” collection in 1947. Karl Lagerfeld liked a specific, very pale PINK that could be found on the cornices of rue St Guillaume.
Read more about PINK color HERE.
I don’t know if CHANEL house does this with the special meaning, but the PINK color is one of the colors that has the most “personalized little names” which accompanies its history and suggests
delicacy, softness, romanticism… To suggest…
PURPLE color
CHANEL house offers several looks in PURPLE. Some will tell you that it is the color of extravagance and individualism, ambiguity etc.
PURPLE is above all, it is a color associated with Christianity. It is found on the outfit worn by bishops or the Pope. But the most important information about production of PURPLE color.
During Antiquity, the best way to obtain the PURPLE was to use a very large quantity of mollusks. About 12,000 mollusks were used to create 1.5 grams of tincture.
It was in the XIXth century that we discovered a cheaper and, above all, synthetic way to create PURPLE. In 1856, a young British chemist named William Henry Perkin was attempting to make a synthetic quinine. His experiments produced an unexpected residue which turned out to be the first synthetic dye aniline, a dark purple color called mauveine, or abbreviated simply as mauve (the dye being named after the lighter color of the mallow flower (purple). William Henry Perkins was initially working on a cure for malaria.
It is interesting to know this part of history when we talk about ecology, natural resources. Of course the treatments of this color have evolved but the history remains.
In the XVIIIth century PURPLE was a color worn by royalty, aristocrats and the wealthy noblemen. Good quality purple fabric was expensive and beyond the reach of ordinary people.
Does CHANEL house bring this color “down to the street”? But this question has relation to the social subject.
CHANEL house presents the timeless palette of its colors with a few “touches” without going beyond the framework. But after all… We are at CHANEL!
There was a time when Gripoix house brought this “madness” of colors in accessories. But it has been lost today.
It is good to keep the base, but perhaps it is time to “move the lines” while keeping the ultimate elegance specific to CHANEL house.
What do you think ?
Guillaumette Duplaix
