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Sunday, October 30, 2022
Saturday, October 22, 2022
Olivier Assayas talks about Kristen in a note for the Chanel Summer Spring 2023 Show
What is the allure that we spontaneously associate with Chanel, that traverses all eras and is embodied in ours by Kristen Stewart… those she is, those she plays at being and those she reinvents from film to film, from collection to collection, in this dramaturgy of clothing and the body that she handles with a sovereignty, a clarity that tells the story of her time, that defines it beyond fashions and frontiers?
We often ponder the growing omnipresence of fashion in our imaginations, in the arts, and film in particular. For me, there is no question, it has ever been thus, and quite rightly so. Because fashion intuitively captures the zeitgeist with a very precise language, even if it is devoid of words. And this revelation radiates, nourishes the inspiration of all creators in all fields, increasing the present, the ephemeral, imbuing it with all its value and beauty of which it was hardly aware. But this alchemy needs mystery to function, that invisible thing at work in all the arts. For fashion it could be called allure. Often grasping at something so small, born of chance as much as of necessity.
Anyone who has come across Kristen Stewart, by which I mean the person, not the actress or her films, knows how she stands with innate elegance and intelligence on the razor’s edge of her era; on both sides is the abyss, where she stands is allure.
And that is undoubtedly what fashion is all about, ensuring the durability of the bold, timeless idea of a woman’s freedom to be both herself and yet constantly new. Anticipating, through her transformation, the underground fluctuations of the world, revealing them even before they materialise. Gabrielle Chanel invented certain icons destined to last through the ages and which still amaze us today, but above all she invented their perpetuation, following the law of an imagination accountable only to itself, destined for renewal with every generation according to an ever renewed language. What drives this constant replenishment if not the allure, if not the meeting between the singularity of a personality as liberated as Kristen Stewart and the timeless idea of the woman’s image. Like a bolt from the blue.
Art is everywhere. We just have to know how to look for it. It is defined by our readiness to welcome it, to converse with it. Kristen hails from Los Angeles, which is at once a city, a culture and a relationship with the entire world through the prism of Hollywood. Kristen always knew this couldn’t be an identity, that she had to build herself through an intuition, an exactitude, which has always guided her and is called… freedom. It’s a path filled with the best encounters, that of kindred spirits engaged in the same quest, or with those who have defined its language. This is how Chanel, for which Kristen could have been but an ephemeral muse, became the key to open all the doors, those that might have restricted and discouraged her; in searching for her style, she found herself.
Kristen belongs to a generation that has transformed the world, having blown up all the values—for better or for worse; a contradictory, iconoclastic generation, oscillating between degrees of irony.
And what if allure was not a way to rise above this chaos, to assert oneself in the face of the preconceived ideas that all too often constrain our movement, our desires; And what if having met Gabrielle Chanel, having understood how to remix her with today and having found a form of accomplishment in her was not the lightning, the thunderbolt that defines Kristen cutting herself out as fascinating yet human and luminous, in the midst of our chaos, as an apparition, as a plenitude, as an allure?
Virginie Viard mentions Kristen for the Chanel SS 2023 campaign
On October 4, last week, CHANEL presented its Spring Summer 2023 Ready-To-Wear show at the Grand Palais Ephémère in Paris, the last day of Fashion Week, closing the fashion month. The collection inspired by American actress Kristine Stewart who has been an ambassador for the French house since 2013 and is also the face of the Spring Summer 2023 collection. “Whether it's her, or the other women I dress, I need to feel that they like the clothes anyway. But, among the people around me, she is the closest to Gabrielle Chanel, at least to my idea of her. She understands CHANEL, its clothes. And with her, it becomes even more modern. This collection, it’s also her” said creative director Virginie Viard.
Chanel opened its show with a black and white movie shown on the 360° cinema screen, realized by Dutch duo Inez & Vinoodh. Kristen Stewart was questioned by a reporter about the evolution of life. She stepped out of le Champo cinema ,“we are living in such an accelerated period of growth, it perks me up” she began. “It’s exhilarating and it puts pressure on us because our identities are these lifelong evolving art projects”. “It’s no longer important to know who you are or even what you want. I think it’s important to burn down your very best yesterday, every day, so you can start again.” She added. A morning meditation.
Who would have been better to write about Kristine Stewart? French Director Olivier Assayas wrote the note of the show. He has been working with the American actress for many years starting with Sils Maria, (Stewart won the César best actress), then Personal Shopper and one in preparation. “Anyone who has come across Kristen Stewart, by which I mean the person, not the actress or her films, knows how she stands with innate elegance and intelligence on the razor’s edge of her era, on both sides is the abyss, where she stands is allure”. Kristen Stewart, front row at the Chanel show wore a black and white cashmere pullover paired with a white and ecru tweed skirt from the Spring-Summer 2023 pre-collection, and the Premiere Edition Originale watch.
“The films we have seen, those that possess us and those we invent for ourselves, Marienbad, the Nouvelle Vague, the allure according to Gabrielle Chanel, Karl, the night, feathers, sequins, heels: I like it when things get mixed up,” observed Virginie Viard. In this show, Chanel pays tribute to the Cinema again; on the circular giant screen, a multitude of images from Alain Resnais' movie Last Year in Marienbad (1961) are projected. At that time, Gabrielle Chanel was responsible for Delphine Seyrig’s dresses and selected Haute Couture looks. In 2018, a newly restored version of the movie made possible by Chanel was premiered at the Venice Film Festival and then released in cinemas.
Kristen talks to WWD at the Chanel SS Show in Paris - 4 Oct 2022
Kristen Stewart has been working on her first screenplay and teased a little of her writing prowess at the Chanel show. The show opened with a short film starring Stewart as herself, with voiceover lines, including: “It’s important to burn down your best yesterday, every day, so you can start again.”
“I wrote them,” Stewart said after the show. “I’m such a better writer than I am a candid speaker. I mean, I can at least get close to expressing myself when I have a minute alone.”
The actress said it reflects her philosophy on constantly challenging herself, and that’s in line with the current cultural climate.
“We’re all now allowed to morph daily and evolve, and I think it’s really important, not to necessarily burn it down, but to never feel like you’ve landed or to be so proud of some fixed notion because every day the world changes,” she said.
The film, directed by Inez and Vinoodh, is a bit of a play on paparazzi and living life in the spotlight, as photographers stalk Stewart as she’s leaving a restaurant. In it she also says the world is “highly pressurized” and moving so fast it gives her “whiplash.”
“You’re not always going to be on the forefront of change in progress, because you get f–king old,” said the 32-year-old. She said while it’s hard to define yourself, particularly in the era of social media and ever-changing mores, if you don’t do it yourself, someone else will do it for you. “And that’s painful. That kind of ruins lives,” she said of the tabloid culture.
The former child star reflected on growing up in the 2000s when the media treated young female stars harshly and expected a hyperfemininity. “It was a really rough, rough time for women, so judgmental, and unbelievably rigid, in terms of what we were allowed to be. Now it just feels sprawlingly free.” She said that while she did grow up on camera in that era, she’s never had social media, which gives her an ability to distance herself from the buzz constantly swirling around her.
To that end, the star attended the show with her fiancée Dylan Meyer and sported a new short pixie mullet.
“When I was little, people would be like, ‘Oh, you look like a boy.’ Nobody would say that any more … we’re cracking open words in certain ways that to me feels like liberation,” she added.
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A very tired Jennie, fresh off of global promotions for Blackpink’s latest album, was tucked away on a white couch backstage and admitted to a little bit of jet lag on a 36-hour trip to Paris. The pop star, who has her first acting role in the upcoming HBO series “The Idol,” said she was “mesmerized” by the film screen that surrounded the room.
Stewart’s film was overlaid with scenes from Alain Resnais’ “Last Year in Marienbad,” projected larger-than-life on a screen that enveloped the runway.
“Kristen was sitting right next to me, so it felt like more of an unreal situation for me,” she said of her place in the front row next to the star.
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For an American actress, Kristen Stewart does a mean existential monologue. Chanel opened its show with a black-and-white clip, shown on wraparound screens, of the “Spencer” star stepping out of an arthouse cinema in Paris and answering a reporter’s question with some thoughts about the meaning of life.
“We’re living in such an accelerated period of growth, it gives me whiplash,” she began.
“It’s exhilarating and it’s highly pressurized because our identities are these lifelong evolving art projects,” Stewart said. “It’s no longer important to know who you are or even what you want. I think it’s important to burn down your very best yesterday, every day, so you can start again.”
It could have been a dialogue from one of the films she’s made with French director Olivier Assayas, making her the first American actress to win a non-honorary César at the prestigious French film awards.
Chanel has contributed costumes and financing to several of these projects, underscoring the strength of its relationship with Stewart, who has been an ambassador for the French fashion house since 2013. The actress, sporting a Joan Jett-esque pixie cut, was the face of the spring 2023 collection press kit.
“She really represents for me the Chanel of today, but the Coco Chanel,” creative director Virginie Viard said in a preview. “On top of that, she looks very French.”
Cinema is a key source of inspiration for Viard, who began her career as a costume designer, working on films including Krzysztof Kieślowski’s “Three Colors: Blue.” Building a collection around Stewart wasn’t easy, she said. “I don’t want to disappoint her.”
She needn’t have worried. The actress worked the looks to perfection, whether posing in an Art Nouveau-style brasserie wearing a side slit black monogram slipdress fastened with a black satin bow over one hip, or standing in a flared white tweed coat dress on the mirrored Art Deco staircase in Chanel’s historic haute couture salon on Rue Cambon.
Stewart, who sat in the front row, has embraced every facet of the brand’s collections, from the quirky to the sublime. “She never asks to change anything. She gets everything,” Viard said, snapping her fingers for emphasis.
