Virginie Viard, who was named artistic director of the house of Chanel following Karl Lagerfeld’s passing in 2019, will be departing her post, according to a report from The Business of Fashion released today. Viard began her first tenure at the house in 1987 and was a longtime protégé of Lagerfeld’s, following him to Chloé and returning to Chanel with him in 1997.
In 2018, Viard told ELLE, “I hate being in the spotlight.” But she seemed to adore working with Lagerfeld, who described her at that time as “my right hand and my left hand…Our relationship is essential, doubled by a very real friendship and affection.”
Chanel cruise 2025.
Viard brought a youthful, sometimes ’80s-influenced flair to the house. For fall 2024, she took Claude Lelouch’s classic Un homme et une femme as inspiration, going so far as to re-create the film’s Deauville beach setting for her runway show. And her most recent outing, cruise 2025, took showgoers to Marseille—specifically, the rooftop of modernist master Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse.
The company shared in a statement that further news “will be announced in due course.”