Chloé

 

Celebrating 60 years at fashion’s forefront, Chloé has pulled out the stops, with a traveling exhibition, styles in limited edition and a gleaming new flagship store in Paris. The all-out campaign reprises the themes chosen to exemplify the brand—elegance, youth, freedom, femininity. Sixteen “emblematic” creations are being reissued, each in an edition of 60, representing the signature styles of the house’s succession of major designers: founder Gaby Aghion’s nude silk blouse, Karl Lagerfeld’s timeless Galaxy dress, Stella McCartney’s pineapple top, Hanna MacGibbon’s camel-hair poncho.

Aghion arrived in postwar Paris fresh from her native Alexandria with a mission to liberate women from the stuffiness and elitism of haute couture. Borrowing the name Chloé from a friend, Aghion opened the house in 1952 with a line of comfortable ready-to-wear—a phrase credited to Aghion—designed for young women on the go. Aghion did things differently from the outset. She staged her fashion shows in the Left Bank brasseries and cafés frequented by the intellectuals and artists of her milieu. She started with a succession of designers for their different points of view, before finally settling on the young Karl Lagerfeld, who’d been with the company for nearly 10 years, in 1975. It was on Lagerfeld’s watch that Chloé came into its own, dressing Grace Kelly, Lauren Bacall, Paloma Picasso and Jane Birkin, among others, in designs that still seem as fresh and contemporary as the day they were sketched.

The glamorous flagship shop on rue Saint Honoré is also Chloé’s new world headquarters. Softly feminine and modern, the store’s creamy marble floors and signature rosy beige walls provide a fine backdrop for current designer Clare Waight Keller’s soft, layered collection. Visitors are met with the kind of sincere attention that’s all but extinct in most high-end Paris shops. Chloé is also setting out to revolutionize customer service: Whether it’s for a handbag or a whole new wardrobe, VIP rooms and professional stylists are available to anyone who calls for an appointment.

253 rue Saint Honoré, 1st

01.55.04.03.30