For more than a hundred years, the story between CHANEL and dance has kept on being written thanks to a common set of values, such as freedom of movement, passion and transmission. Behind the inspirations, the delicacy and the grace of both CHANEL and dance creations, emerges a choreography of gestures, continuously repeated and reinvented.
The idea of freedom of movement shaped the way Gabrielle Chanel created clothes and continues to be at the heart of creation at CHANEL. Considering the unique way in which she designed directly on the body of her models, the love of the creator for dance is obvious. “Cloths must be as alive, as mobile as the woman who wears it.” For her, dance was the ultimate expression of what already defined the allure of CHANEL: elegance and freedom of movement.
Close to avant-garde artists, Gabrielle Chanel became friends with the founder of the Ballets Russes Serge Diaghilev in the 1920s, and then his patron. It was in 1924 that she first put her audacity and vision in the service of dance when she created the costumes for the ballet “Le Train Bleu”. In her commitment to explore and develop a liberated allure, the couturière herself had practised this discipline , with choreographers such as Isadora Duncan – each in their own way, they challenged the codes of their time.
True to Gabrielle Chanel's commitment to artists and her love of dance, CHANEL perpetuates and renews its links with the discipline. Since 2023, the House has been Major Patron of the Paris Opera, Major Patron of the Opening Gala of the dance seasons since 2018, and supports the artistic projects of the Opera for which CHANEL imagines unique costumes every year. The House as well supports leading artists and choreographers such as Blanca Li, JR, Benjamin Millepied, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Germaine Acogny and Dimitri Chamblas, for whom dance is not only a territory of exploration and innovation, but also a tool for transmission fostering dialogue between cultures and generations. From the Junior Ballet of the Paris Opera to the École des Sables in Dakar and the Orsolina28 Foundation in Moncalvo, the partnerships cultivated by CHANEL aim to promote training and encourage vocations around the world.
Be it contemporary or classical creation, with recognised or emerging talents, dance, the language of the liberated body in movement, keeps on inspiring the fashion of CHANEL today.