At the end of the day, you're grousing about a few viscose garments that you will probably never touch, so the distinction there between silk and viscose is moot.
My point is this: perhaps instead of there being some grand conspiracy—and you're posting about this in Hedi's thread too—to cut costs at Chanel by selling unlined viscose tweed, Mathieu Blazy was simply trying something different. Maybe instead of getting marching orders from the suits to use less expensive fabric, he thought that viscose had traits that were desirable in terms of what he was trying to achieve. Maybe the viscose tweed had a different quality of movement or sat on the body differently. Viscose is lighter than silk after all, and contrary to your earlier claims it is neither synthetic (it's a chemically altered organic material) nor less breathable than silk.
But all of this has already been pointed out by others in prior posts, and by a fabric researcher to boot. So at the end of the day, you're dressing up an individual complaint (you don't like viscose, you've had bad experiences with viscose) in fuzzy gripes about quality even though your argument doesn't hold water. Ultimately, Blazy used viscose tweed to achieve a particular effect, and this also involved the labour of a number of skilled craftspeople. There's nothing cheap in that process, and these are not cheap or lower quality garments. We'll probably see different materials (perhaps even your coveted silk-lined, non-viscose tweed) in his F/W collection, when the aesthetic and practical concerns are also different.
I don't intend to write a thesis, but here are few things worth expanding on so that I can put my thoughts in a more thorough post.
A couple of pages ago, I wrote about the "viscose vs. silk" debate: "I think that it signals the attitude. And the condescending way to preach for viscose as if we have never worn better..."
Your posts and the fabric expert's post really helped me to understand your point of view. Putting my objective fashion hat on, my first post regarding this collection was essentially "there is something for everyone". I also think that he is a wonderful dress maker, more so than his daywear propositions.
Now, putting on my consumer hat, my views are slightly different. "you're dressing up an individual complaint" - I am not alone and the gaslighting has been around for a few years, and Viscosegate has only been one of them: A couple of years ago, my store manager announced with excitement that the Chanel suits would be lighter, because there wouldn't be so much fabric inside the seams. In that season, some of the tweed pieces didn't have any extra material inside the seams at all. We didn't like it, because when women get older, the midsection expands, and we need the extra fabric to be let out to create more room. This was one of the original proposition of Chanel jackets: you wear it through your elderly years so that it ages with you. In fact, the alterations through life is free and this is part of the reason why women pay this type of prices for Chanel jackets. It is sort of a philosophy: we buy fewer items with higher quality and the classics will age well through the years. When they eliminated the extra fabric, they also eliminated the long held philosophy.
So when the viscose comment came out of Vogue, consumers took notice in a negative way. To quote one lady "Viscose is cheaper and it can wrinkle and shrink. The bean counters were cutting back on the jacket embellishments to save money under VV whilst raising the prices. Now they are cheapening out on fabric?"
If you think that all these are my conspiracy, perhaps it's a good idea to read these threads when you are bored. People there are generally RTW customers and unlike me, a few are "cultured":
It’s kinda disappointing that the new directors at Chanel and Dior have designed clothes that do not flatter the female silhouette. Clothes can be androgynous while flattering to the female body. Those low slung pants look sloppy to me.
forum.purseblog.com
I do love this. I don't know what to say about the rest. BV with feathers and Chanel-shaped jackets? Is fashion lost. The houses which are all Zara-fying themselves. Zara is laughing so hard - they don't even have to do any work anymore. *Runs back of Balenciaga* 🙈
forum.purseblog.com
Viscose
Google AI "Viscose is a versatile,
semi-synthetic fabric made from processed wood pulp, known for its soft, drapey, and absorbent qualities, similar to silk and cotton. Also known as rayon, its production involves regenerating cellulose from trees into a high-quality yarn for clothing, bedding, and other textiles. While plant-based, its manufacturing process can be resource-intensive and a source of environmental concern unless sustainable sourcing and production methods are used. "
Grok AI "...While the raw material is natural,
the extensive chemical treatment—using solvents like sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide—makes it a "regenerated" or semi-synthetic fiber. It’s not purely natural like cotton or wool, nor fully synthetic like polyester, but
its manufactured nature leads to the synthetic label."
The statements in this thread from the experts is like saying Beyond meat is better than steak and Red 40 is better than beet juice (btw, there is more work to make Beyond meat and Red 40). To us consumers, what matters more is the touch the skin feels, the longevity of the fabric, and the maintenance involved through the years. If this was Zara, no one would have bothered to write about it. But this is Chanel, a label that asks us to spend $10,000 for a jacket.
This entire debate about viscose really enlightened me: I had been puzzled by the state of fashion in recent years. Reading these posts, I think that the fashion industry seems to care about innovation for the sake of innovation, but along the way, it forgot about its customers. Has anyone pondered why in real life, women don't buy these giant shoulder jackets that don't fit? I will end with this picture...food for thought.
Source: Purseblog, vogue.
and I'm not even a "cultured" Chanel customer lol
