PARIS, January 27, 2009
By
The room was all white, with every pillar deeply garlanded in giant paper flowers, tables covered with laser-cut paper cloths, and the staircase laden with yet more cutout roses and camellias. As the girls started to descend in pristine, precision-cut silhouettes, heads decorated with exquisite paper-flower tiara constructions, it was clear this was going to be a Chanel moment to treasure.In splendid defiance of the darkness of the time, Karl Lagerfeld said he'd cleared everything away and "started with a clean sheet of paper." An all-white collection sounds like an exercise in clinical minimalism, but it wasn't. It was rather like an uplifting rite of spring, perfectly pitched between graphic modernism, ravishing romance, and astonishingly innovative detail.
From a distance, the collection was disciplined into simple planes, the silhouettes cut in an A-line tapering upward to meet cropped jackets with flat, squared-off shoulders and standaway collars. Close up, though, the minutiae became mind-spinning. The classic Chanel braid was minimized to millimeters of handwoven fluff and the embroidered flowers modernized in weightless 3-D montages of organza and cellophane. The paillettes were microdots of matte plastic, and the lace shivered with tiny crystalline beads.
Key to the show's success was the involvement of Kamo, a Japanese hairdresser and Lagerfeld discovery whose team scored and scissored out—while sitting on the floor of a Chanel backroom—the incredible constructs of paper roses, camellias, leaf fronds, and feathers that adorned each girl. Photos of elaborate eighteenth-century white porcelain figures pinned to the studio wall were another source of inspiration. But research can only take you so far: The real genius is in the transformation that takes place in the making, a result of the Chanel workers' ability to push their craft to points of innovation never quite seen before. That, and Lagerfeld's deft tempering of extravagance with a sense of freshness and restraint, made this fragile collection one of the strongest arguments for the value of haute couture in the whole of Paris.
PARIS, December 3, 2008
By
Ruby red lacquered bags like Fabergé eggs swinging from gilded chains, heels sculpted like upturned onion domes, hair-and-pearl-adorned tiaras like those of Byzantine empresses—oh, and strict black Soviet "uniform" suits. Yes, this was Karl Lagerfeld setting off on another of his light but learned excursions into Coco Chanel's exotic history with men: in this case, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, and the Russian inspirations—the Ballets Russes, Constructivism, Byzantine jewelry, and Slavic folklore—triggered by their relationship."Paris-Moscou" was Lagerfeld's theme for the semiannual collection designed to show off the skills of the French embroiderers, milliners, goldsmiths, and shoemakers the house supports. And it was also the subject of his directorial debut. As the audience—which included Princess Caroline of Monaco, Diane Kruger, Emmanuelle Béart, and Clémence Poésy—took its seats in the plush velvet and mahogany Théâtre le Ranelagh, the show opened with a silent black-and-white cine-skit on Coco's flirtation with Russian-Parisian émigré society in the 1910's and 1920's, featuring a cast of Lagerfeld's friends. (The short film is now playing on www.chanel.com.)
Fashion-wise, the then-now parallels were embodied by the Russian models, led out by Sasha Pivovarova. The clothes—extravagantly embellished with sequins and pearls, tufted layers of chiffon, and sparkling feather fringe—were accessorized with a winter fantasia of military fur hats, gold Cossack boots, and pseudo-revolutionary badges, as well as a smattering of very 2008 leather leggings. If today's oligarchettes are still in the market for super-spending, there'll be plenty here to keep the rubles flowing. And for anyone with a yearning to buy in a different way, here's another thought: The goody bag guests took away contained Cuir de Russie (the classic scent Chanel devised with Ernest Beaux, the czar's perfumer, in 1927) and the new Chanel nail color release—the deep blue, iridescent Nuit de Russie.
PARIS, October 3, 2008
By
Since it's not exactly feasible to invite people to view a Chanel collection in-house, as it used to be done, Karl Lagerfeld instead decided to bring the Rue Cambon to the thousand or so people who crowded into the Grand Palais. A life-size facade of the storied Chanel building at number 31—complete with a street runway—had been dropped into the space. The doors opened, "Our House" by Madness struck up on the sound system, and a line of Chanel-clad pedestrians streamed out.It was a charming, expensive shot of celebratory fun rolled out with supreme confidence. Lagerfeld said the theme was inspired by a grayish portrait by Marie Laurencin, who painted Coco Chanel in the twenties, but really, it was yet another of his long, allusive, sometimes mischievous excursions around the house set pieces. The fact that there's an untainted core to this label—the tweeds, bows, camellias, and ineffably pretty cocktailwear—means Lagerfeld can take full license to nod to all sides of the road. So, within a relatively tight palette of black, white, and gray, he made free with current references to graphic checks (done in a painterly way on sleeveless suits), metallics and sheerness (in tissue-fine silvery pink lamé and crunchy, sparkly paillette embroideries), and lingerie notes (a bit of boudoir styling in marabou-heeled shoes and frilled negligee sleeves).
This, however, is far from an adequate précis of the multifaceted Chanel action on the runway. It encompassed jumpsuits and Empire gowns, flamenco-cum-western ruffled skirts, black ciré swimwear, and, in the middle of it all, a kitsch skit on the Chanel carrier bag: little shopping bags in pink leather. In the end, though, it was the delicious eveningwear that carried the show to a lovely conclusion: long, narrow skirtsuits with cropped boleros, a pink vertically pleated dress, and, yes, even a gray-tinted cloudy georgette flowing dress that could have sat for Marie Laurencin.
PARIS, July 1, 2008
By
When showing in the Grand Palais—a soaring dome of a space capable of dwarfing an enormous audience and miniaturizing any runway—Karl Lagerfeld needs to exaggerate to make his theme carry. Thus, a 50-foot set is craned in to announce the season's keynote: in this case, a vast multilevel stack of steel-gray tubes, suggesting organ pipes.What proceeded, inevitably enough, was a virtuoso fugue in tubular cutting, played up, down, and across every possible scale in Chanel's suiting, embroideries, chiffon, and eveningwear. From the beginning, the clothes took on curvilinear volumes, starting with gray-flecked, cocoonlike car coats over short skirts and trompe l'oeil tweed "suits" with belled skirts, which on closer inspection were actually one-piece coat-dresses. Lagerfeld's irrepressible facility for quick-fire free association in design ideas led to dozens of three-dimensional devices thereafter: huge bunchy cap sleeves, cartridge rolls of material encircling waists or hobbling hemlines, deep scrolls of fabric standing out from skirts, and spaghettilike fringing flying from shoulders.
The general impression was of a collection that had changed key from last season's girlishness to something tuned more to a winter-weight, grown-up frequency. Still, the delight was all in the more light-fingered treatments: delicate fronds of ostrich fringe on a micro-beaded suit, or silvery zigzag embroidery on an intensely sequined belted dress. Couture at this supreme level only gets more incredible the closer you get to it. The frustration is that, paraded at such a distance, the astonishing skill involved in creating these effects is incapable of being picked up by the naked eye. There is, of course, a sense of occasion and anticipation in being invited to sit in the Chanel grandstand, but the genius of Karl Lagerfeld and the unique ateliers of the Rue Cambon might be far better appreciated in close-up.
NEW YORK, May 16, 2008
By
After taking to the skies for the flight-themed Resort collection he presented in Los Angeles a year ago, Karl Lagerfeld made a splashy landing with the new Chanel Cruise show. His models literally walked on water on a curvilinear runway built over the famously sinuous pool at the Raleigh Hotel in South Beach, Miami. If Zoë Kravitz was nervous that they might misstep and fall in, Sasha Pivovarova—who opened and closed the show—said resolutely that she never entertained the thought."Everyone associates Miami with the Raleigh's kind of [Deco] glamour," Diane Kruger (in a navy satin minidress and straw hat worn tilted back on her head) said after the show. And the closing performance, featuring the United States synchronized-swimming team, would have made Esther Williams (who once swam in this pool) proud. The clothes themselves, though, nodded to an entirely different era. The 74-look collection mixed rock 'n' roll with seventies swing and high glamour, all rendered with Lagerfeld's forward-minded attitude.
Models with Brian Jones-inspired hair looked as smart in smokings as they did in seventies-style full-legged light-wash jeans, tie-dyed logo tees, and haute hippie headbands. These are sure to be in high demand among the easy-living types who make the rounds of tony beachside resorts, but it wasn't all just sun and fun. A series of elaborately beaded dresses with clear or smoky plastic insets were examples of pure urban sophistication, just as the few goddess dresses were exemplars of restraint. The pistol-heeled shoes—paging Charlie's Angels—were a different story. Lagerfeld's own wardrobe might have influenced the hard-edged looks (silver sequined blazers and black jeans) that the models rocked near the close of a show that was a spectacular in every way. "This kind of production speaks to the importance of the [Resort] market and signals how commercially viable it is," said Saks' Ron Frasch. Perhaps only Lagerfeld, though, can make the whole enterprise seem like so much fun.
0 comments:
Post a Comment