In my memory, one of the great virtues of that exhibition was the unity of the whole. The images, mostly black and white and shot by Lagerfeld with styling by Roitfeld, started from a seemingly simple premise: the same jacket as a starting point, reinterpreted again and again. Chanel presented the project as a reinterpretation of that emblematic garment, and in London it was shown at the Saatchi Gallery with over a hundred photographs, many of them displayed with an almost editorial neatness, unframed and with that white border that gave them both breathing room and system.

That was a lesson for me. Not only because of the power of the images, but because of the way they were exhibited. The photography stopped relying on the artifice of the frame to gain immediacy, rhythm, and modernity. The wall almost became a page. The exhibition book, which I bought that day and still cherish, extended that same feeling: it wasn't just a simple catalog, but a physical extension of the project, an object conceived with the same care as the images, with a paper and a presence that reinforced its status as an editorial piece. The volume was published by Steidl and later expanded in an updated edition, which confirms that it wasn't an ephemeral action, but a project with a true vocation for permanence.

Over time, I understood that visit had left me with more than a nice memory. It left me with a mental structure. Part of my own photographic projects also stem from there: from the idea that a single garment can become a narrative device, a visual system, an emotional archive. Years later, when I imagined a project for IMILOA around a white shirt photographed on different women, I was still, in some way, dialoguing with that exhibition seen in London. Not as a copy, but as a resonance. Because some exhibitions aren't just visited: they stay working inside you.