Chloé’s mood-lifting Harrods pop-up

From confident to effortlessly chic limited-edition bags

When the fashion house Chloé was founded in 1952, its creator Gaby Aghion coined the phrase prêt-à-porter for high-quality clothes that bridged couture with less formal clothing. Between 1958 and 1987, each ready-to-wear garment was named alphabetically from A-Z, a tradition that Birmingham-born Clare Waight Keller reintroduced to Chloé a year after she became creative director in 2011.

Taking this by-letter naming as the lead for a pop-up in Harrods from September 4 to 27, Chloé has drawn on the letters of its name and created exclusive designs based on two of the brand’s most popular bags, the Faye (first picture) and the Drew (second picture).

The letters are a springboard for interpreting the attitude of the Chloé woman. C is for Confident – the Faye in tobacco python (£18,000) and the Drew in tan suede and leather (£1,545) are both earthy but elegantly soigné.

“All I ever wanted was for Chloé to have a happy spirit to make people happy,” Aghion once said, so naturally H is for Happy; the sun-shaped motifs in sunflower yellow (Drew in python, £3,100) and tan (Faye in leather and suede, £1,750) lift the spirits.

L stands for Light – both pale pink and the house’s signature beige rose are evocative of the colours of the Pyramids in Aghion’s native Egypt, but also light in attitude; the Faye python bag (£2,295) with studs and the Drew leather bag (£1,750) both come in blush nude.

The firework or star motif of O is for Optimistic, with a dynamic and geometric print in a neutral palette (Faye, £1,850; Drew, £2,650), and finally E stands for Effortless chic, embodied in the Faye (£4,000) in python and suede patchwork of intense green, sienna red and black, and a similar interpretation for the leather Drew (£1,550).

A further 14 Faye and Drew bags (from £1,850) have been created by Chloé in limited-edition colours, and the “Alphabet bar” will allow customers to adorn their bags with Chloé’s alphabet charms and jewellery collection (£30-£55) – because C is for charming too.