Forever Chloé: Chemena Kamali’s Love Letter

Rumours of creative director Chemena Kamali’s departure swirled as guests waited excitedly in the fall breeze of the Paris Observatory gardens, eager to see what could be her final vision for the Chloé woman. 

Titled the Obsession collection, Kamali designed by focusing on her love for Chloé’s archetypes. The clothes read like a diary of the maison’s past. Broderie anglaise, a staple of Chloé’s early robes de jeunes filles, appeared in the collection, alongside sheer organza and heavy cotton, with patterns taken from 19th century archival threadwork.

Outerwear took on a glossier edge with smoky transparent vinyl layered over ’70s fishermen shapes for a sharper silhouette. The tailoring carried the most sentiment though, a 1972 “Noel” suit, with scalloped-edge tuxedo, served as a starting point for Kamali’s take on women’s suiting – a long running thread in the maison’s heritage. 

This season felt especially personal, with Kamali offering a book of inspiration on each seat, a photograph of her mum from the ’70s on the cover. The pages were filled with polaroids of her muses from previous collections, as well as inspirations, as if drawn from her moodboards. One image close to the middle of the book is a low resolution bold text that flows across both pages: “always change and change again” – a sentiment Kamali seems to embody on her path to whenever she lands next.

If this was a goodbye, it was certainly a tender one. No reinvention, no grand statement, just a designer sharing everything she loved about the house. Her sign-off in the show notes was simple enough: “Forever Chloé.”