Photo: Carlo Scarpato / Gorunway.com
Few designer appointments of recent times have gone off with the bang that Chemena Kamali’s at Chloé has. Partly it’s her credentials: She worked at the label twice before landing the top job last year, and she’s German like Karl Lagerfeld, who himself had multiple stints at the French house and set its tone and aesthetic with a string of influential late ’70s collections.
But it takes more than the kismet of shared biographies to resonate the way Chloé is today. What it really boils down to is Kamali’s feeling for it, and that in itself is a mysterious brew of intuition, hard work, guts, and, yes, even luck. Which is how you might describe the fortuitousness of Vice President Kamala Harris choosing her designs not once but twice at the Democratic National Convention last month, one in a shade called coconut brown—purely coincidence, the brand insisted at the time—that was tailor-made for all the meme generators on the campaign trail making content about Harris’s viral coconut-tree remarks.
The media glare could’ve added to the pressure of putting on a second show. Sophomore collections can be more challenging than the first, especially when the debut has been a success but the shock of the new has started to wear off. Kamali demonstrated not a stitch of self-doubt with the clothes and accessories she showed today; at a preview she said, “It was a fun season. We had a good energy, because you felt how the first show was resonating and it gives you a lot of happiness. You then just want to give everyone more, you know? And we’re exploring other ideas, other sides of Chloé.”
The collection was a confident evolution of her first outing, with more casual elements—like high-waist, flared jeans recalling Phoebe Philo’s for the brand circa spring 2004 and a pink flamingo bathing suit channeling the cheekiness of the Stella McCartney era—that may be easier access points for the brand than the ruffles and laces worn by the celebrities and models in the front row today. On that note, the little kitten-heel jelly sandals will also be a popular hit.
Like Kamali’s first, this collection was built on her intimate understanding of Chloé’s history. Photos of Lagerfeld-designed collections were pinned to the mood board in her studio. Two of her most inspired lifts were the waist shapers of spring ’77 and the lace bloomers of spring ’78. Both have the potential to reshape how young women think about sexy dressing in 2025. Jackets—in sturdy workwear cotton, soft suede, and leather and all built with generous gathers along their strong shoulder lines—gave the sensual lightness of these pieces some ballast, maybe just a shade too much.
Freshness and lightness are what make Chloé what it is, and Kamali has an assured hand with both. The floral-bouquet-print dresses in cascades of ruffled chiffon, shorter in front and longer in back, caught the air beautifully as they made their way down the runway. Chloé’s It girls and perhaps even other women, less prone to flowers and frills, are counting the days until next summer. They look like a dream to wear.
Collection
This article was originally published on Vogue Runway.
