CINEMA PARADISO

The house of Chanel has been a committed champion of the film world since founder Gabrielle Chanel started dressing the actresses from the United Artists studio at the request of American producer Samuel Goldwyn in the 1930s. Besides styling stars on screen and off, the brand has been an active supporter of international movie festivals, institutions and directors (local auteur Eric Khoo was one of them); has helped to restore classics such as the enigmatic Last Year at Marienbad (1961); and often draws inspiration from cinema. For Cruise 2025/26, it pays homage to the glamour of the silver screen as well as Coco Chanel's decades-spanning friendship with legendary Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti. Here's an exclusive closeup look at the collection and the many ways it's coded la dolce vita.

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Gabrielle Chanel's fondness for Italy started even before she befriended Luchino Visconti. Her first visit was to Venice in 1920 to get over the heartbreaking death of her beau Boy Capel, and she was immediately taken by the city's lion-shaped statues (she was, after all, a Leo) and Byzantine-style churches. Italy naturally became a place she associated with sunniness and joy. The handbags in Chanel's Cruise 2025/26 collection are a nod to Italy's jaunty nightlife culture. The cream of the crop: How about this resin and metal minaudiere shaped like a giant cup of gelato and "sprinkled" with handset strass that took 126 hours to complete? Meanwhile, the glamour of cinema comes to life in a series of ultra-elegant black-and-white looks that were teamed with movie star-style shades and long gloves on the runway. A Holly Golightly-esque LBD (opposite page) gets a hyper-slick update in supple lambskin and a beaded trim inspired by the jewellery often seen on leading ladies of Italian cinema in the 1970s. The Chanel-owned embroidery metier d'art Lesage was behind said embellishment, which also appears on a matching jacket. A total of 113 hours of needlework was needed to complete the ornamentation on both garments, comprising 3,600 beads, 430 stones and 140 rhinestones - how's that for some stardust? Coco Chanel has often been credited with introducing the idea of the Cruise collection: lightweight, comfortable and stylish pieces ideal for travel and that inherently channel the spirit of being on holiday. The brand was in fact the first fashion house to stage a Cruise show - now a highly anticipated annual affair that usually takes place in some of the dreamiest destinations around the world. For Cruise 2025/26, it not only headed to Lake Como in Italy, but also presented the collection in the palatial Villa d'Este - t