Chanel to Show Cruise 2021 Collection in Capri

After staying close to home for the last few seasons, the French label is going on vacation.

In the past, Chanel has taken the cruise season as an opportunity to treat showgoers to presentations in international locales like Cuba or Seoul. But since 2016, the French label has stayed close to home, even if travel was very much on Karl Lagerfeld's or Virginie Viard's mind: For its Cruise 2019 presentation, Lagerfeld transformed the Grand Palais in Paris into an ocean liner, and for Cruise 2020, Viard turned the same venue into a pre-war train station.

And while the Grand Palais has become everything from a space station to a beach, Chanel is taking its next cruise collection to an island that can't be replicated in a large exhibition hall: On May 7, 2020, the fashion house will present its tweed-heavy resortwear in Capri, Italy.

"We are very happy to go to Italy, and even more so to go to Capri," Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion and president of Chanel SAS, told WWD. "It's a very inspiring place, very inspiring for Virginie Viard. We have a lovely cruise show in the works."

It will be the second cruise collection designed by Viard, who has led the house's artistic direction since the death of Karl Lagerfeld in February.

"From the 1920s, Gabrielle Chanel offered her clients lightweight and comfortable designs for yachting, coastal resorts, spa towns and other various sunny destinations such as the Riviera and the Lido beaches of Venice," Chanel said in a statement.

So, while we'll have to wait until next year to see what sartorial tricks Viard has in store, we can almost bet that this laid-back aesthetic will dictate what comes down the runway in Italy.

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