Earlier this month Virginie Viard, the creative director of Chanel, the second largest luxury brand in the world by sales, left the house. Though critics (including this one) had generally disliked her work, which was awkward and seemed to equate shorts with fresh ideas, Chanel management had always declared its loyalty to her, and the revenue kept going up — to almost $20 billion last year. One week Ms. Viard was showing her cruise collection in Marseille, France; a few weeks later, she was gone. According to Bruno Pavlovsky, the president of fashion at Chanel, Ms. Viard did not have anything to do with the couture show held this week. That’s saying something, given the most memorable feature of her last couture was that every look was paired with shiny white tights.

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Persons: Virginie Viard, Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, Viard, Bruno Pavlovsky Locations: Marseille, France