Chantilly Arts & Elégance Richard Mille: a resounding success for the 1st editon!
The weekend started Saturday 6th of September with a fabulous gala dinner in the Chantilly horse museum with the prestigious presence of Richard Mille friends, Natalie Portman and her husband Benjamin Millepied, newly appointed Director of the Opera de Paris. They joined over 500 guests to celebrate the rebirth of the concours d‘elegance in the fabulous setting of the Chantilly Chateau and the beautiful gardens designed by Le Notre.
Nearly 10.000 people gathered in the Sunday sunshine at the Château de Chantilly. The stunning gardens provided the perfect bucolic setting in which to celebrate art and elegance with Richard Mille.
This first edition of the Chantilly Arts & Elegance Richard Mille has already earned itself a place among the cream of elegant car competitions. By ingeniously combining the expertise and culture symbolic of great French traditions with the world of automotive design, Chantilly Arts & Elegance Richard Mille has taken a French institution that died out in the 1930s and brought it back into vogue.
On Sunday, the task before the jury of around 40 renowned experts was to adjudicate three car competitions:
The Concours d’Elegance juxtaposed the world of Haute Couture with the estheticism of concept cars. Eleven fashion models dressed by as many Haute Couture designers walked alongside eleven concept cars from international manufacturers, including three world premieres: the Aston Martin Zagato Shooting Brake 2014, the DS Divine and the Peugeot Exalt (French version). McLaren also chose Chantilly Arts & Elegance Richard Mille as the setting for an exclusive European presentation of the McLaren P1 GTR, a 1000hp supercar reserved exclusively for the race track.
The Richard Mille Concours d’Elegance prize was won by the Alfa Romeo Disco Volante, a concept car designed by Touring and based on the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione.
The condition, restoration and historic interest of a hundred cars came under scrutiny in the Concours d’Etat. The Richard Mille Best of Show prize went to an extraordinary 1937 Delahaye 135M cabriolet, honored for its ultra-sleek lines designed by Figoni et Falaschi, the celebrated pre-war bodywork manufacturers.
The Concours des Clubs featured almost 500 cars, judged not only in terms of their presentation and the quality of their restoration, but also the way they were presented during the traditional lunch on the lawn. The Delahaye Club, whose appearance delighted visitors, picked up the Goyard prize for the quality of display.
With the extremely rare Bugatti Royale Coupé Napoleon 1930 taking pride of place, the chateau grounds provided an exceptional setting for the riveted aluminum sculptures of Emmanuel Chapalain. The day was also enlivened with a number of events, from a presentation of French gourmet cuisine to an exhibition of exceptional leather goods. The Chateau de Chantilly was also open to the public, who enjoyed both the guided tours of the rooms organized specially for the occasion and the chance to admire the superb gardens, whether from the sky in a hot air balloon or aboard steamers on the canals.
The magnificent Jeu de Paume room of the famous Condé museum hosted the exhibition Fra Angelico, Botticelli… Chefs-d’œuvre retrouvés. The original approach of the exhibition, supported by Richard Mille, lay in its reassembling of polyptychs scattered throughout the world, thus offering a genuine panorama of the Quattrocento paintings and drawings of Florence and Siena.
The many workshops and displays celebrating French expertise and lifestyle were a huge hit with spectators, thrilled at the chance to combine their passion for cars with such elegance and refinement.
Richard Mille and Peter Auto are delighted to be associated with this sublime event, which has proved such a major success on the French and European automobile scenes. The second Chantilly Arts & Elegance Richard Mille is already scheduled for the first Sunday of September 2015 at the Château de Chantilly. A host of new mechanical surprises await!
