The City Of Romance

Yesterday I was luckily enough to go to Paris for the day! I went specifically for the Chloe Retrospectic at the Palais De Tokyo to celebrate its 60 years in fashion from it's inception in 1952 till today. The gallery itself is huge with wide open spaces and high ceilings which I love; it didn't have much of a french theme but apart from this I loved it as a space. It has recently been expanded from 8,000 to 22,000 square metres, making it one of  largest cultural institutions devoted to contemporary culture in Europe.

Not knowing a lot about Chloe as a brand I wasn't sure what I was in for but as you go in you're met with iconic imagery taken throughout the brands history by legendary fashion photographers such as David Bailey and Helmut Newton. This doesn't follow any sort of order but you can still appreciate the images none the less as they're displayed and printed beautifully.

It's been curated by renowned fashion and museology Judith Clark who has recently created The Concise Dictionary of Dress exhibition at the V&A in London. She'd produced little sets looking at different looks that Chloe has done with it's different designers and has themes in each such a Art Nouveau. Everything down to the mannequins hair represented the look which I loved as it captured the brands femininity and youthful spirit. 

The illustrations was strangely some of my favourite pieces of the retrospective, as I'm so envious of designers effortless sketches they produce and they way they use it to convey how they want a certain look. Along with sketches of dresses they had the actual imagery of models wearing it on the catwalk which was nice. I didn't realise how many faces had actually designed for Chloe like Gaby Aghion, Karl Largerfeld and Phoebe Philo. To coincide with the opening of the retrospective, Chloe have launched a new digital platform called The Alphabet which allows fans of the brand to explore its heritage using A-Z themes telling individual stories about the label, which I enjoyed having a quick look at after looking at the main body of the exhibition. So if you're around Paris anytime soon I definitely recommend popping in. It's running from  29th September till 18th November and is about €10 entry and €4 if you have a two for one voucher which comes on Eurostar tickets.