Culture Chanel Exhibition – Shanghai’s Museum of Contemporary Art

As this is my first post it took me quite some time to get it started.  I could not find the perfect content to start my blog with.  I believe the choice of my first proper post is perfect, what better way to start my blog than with the magnificent Mademoiselle Gabriella Chanel.

Shanghai’s Museum of Contemporary Art is breaking its mould to show its first ever exhibition based around one designer – better yet they dedicated two floors to it. 

Mademoiselle Chanel (19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was an extraordinary French Fashion designer whose philosophy, menswear-inspired fashions and the expensive simplicity made her into one of the most famous fashion brands of our 20^th century.  The exhibition Culture Chanel is based on her creative universe, connecting Chanel designs through time to an extravaganza of Gabrielle Chanel’s artistic and literary influences.

This exhibition spans across a century of the most important artists, it aims to go beyond fashion design and gives you as a visitor the chance to experience the style and creativeness over several time periods that contributed to the Chanel identity and culture of today.

Curator Jean-Louis Froment moves away from the chronological flow.  Instead he takes on a methodical themed format, the 5 themes ‘Origin”, ‘Abstraction’, ‘Invisibility’, ‘Liberty’ and ‘Imaginary’.

Chanel’s designs, artworks, manuscripts and films are not to be missed. 

From Left: Portrait of Gabrielle Chanel with her dog, Gigot, at her villa ‘La Pausa’, in Roquebrune, France, circa 1930, from Collection Chanel, Paris, © D.R

'Acrobats' by Pablo Picasso, 1905, © Collection Marina Picasso/Courtesy Galerie Jan Krugier & Cie, Genève (Suisse)/Succession, Picasso 2010

Barbara Palvin wearing an outfit from CHANEL’s 2010 Spring/Summer Ready-to-Wear collection by Martin Lidell, © D.R

[Images via Wallpaper]