Chanel Catwalk Fashion Show Paris ss2012

It was a poetic Chanel-show. Especially after the dark, gloomy autumn show half a year ago. Is Karl Lagerfeld looking at the bright side of life again? His imaginary underwater world surely made the audience forget there is a serious financial crisis going on in the real world.

Lagerfeld changed the typical commercial and somewhat safe Chanel-look into a sporty one, with silver shoes, conch-shaped heels, a stripped Chanel-suit where the chains were replaced by pearls and he introduced modern fabrics, like the transparent plastic jacket over a swimsuit. For evening there we light lacy and mesh dresses. It was amazing what he did with his element of inspiration, the pearl – one of the Chanel-icons. Not only the colors, also the way fabrics looked, the accessories, the make up.

Florence Welch was the guest-performer, hidden in a gigantic shell where she sang her siren-song. Mysterious and magical.

Chanel Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2011

The Chanel-show and -collection gave the audience a post-apocalyptic feeling. The smoking lava, the gray and black painting and music by The Cure all added this dark touch to the clothes.

Chanel ‘s spring/summer 2011 collection

Karl Lagerfeld’s brand new short film for Chanel

Karl Lagerfeld’s brand new short film for Chanel is called Window World. In the video we see models Magdalena Frackowiak, Barbara Dvorakova (in an orange wig) and Baptiste Giabiconi playing boutique mannequins.

Chanel Haute Couture Catwalk Fashion Show FW2011

The setting of the Chanel Couture show was a round stage on which a huge bronze Lion was standing. Getting the lion inside of the area must have been just as hard as it was with the iceberg, cause it was HUGE! The lion’s front paw was resting on what looked like a giant pearl. From out of that ball Lagerfeld’s models appeared.

The girls made a tangled impression; their hair was messy and most times was hanging all in front of their faces. The clothes on the contrary were flawless. Karl Lagerfeld designed many typical Chanel suits. They were made out of tweed, camel, velvet and many other thick autumn fabrics. The focus was often on the sleeves; those were loose and had pleats.

Karl also played with his jackets; he let his models wear short jackets over long ones and made them look like a one-piece. His skirts were all at knee-length or longer and were often wide like the skirts at the latest Louis Vuitton show. The waists of the outfits were small.

All creations came in shades like maroon, brown, camel and navy. They were highlighted by gold details;  embroideries, sequins and beadings. Eye-catching bracelets and golden boots completed the gorgeous looks.

And we sure hope that big lion was a sign of Karl Lagerfeld saying ‘Holland is going to win the World Cup’. We’ll see about that on Sunday.

Ps. This week rumours were spread about Lagerfeld appearing on Gossip Girl any time soon. Since Blake Lively and Leigthon Meester from that serie attented the Chanel show we think it’s not going to be long before we see Karl on TV.

Chanel Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

Global cooling, not global warming was the inspiration for Chanel’s fall/winter collection. Now don’t think the show was about durable fashion or had something to do with eco-friendly production. No, on the contrary Karl Lagerfeld even flew in an iceberg from Sweden to decorate his catwalk. After the fashion show that iceberg was to be flewn back to Sweden as well. If you ask us, this kind of superfluous actions only increase global warming.

During the show the iceberg was slowly melting, so all models ended up walking in big puddles of water. What a pity for the luxurious clothes! Karl’s long pants, floor-sweeping coats & dresses and his fur boots all got wet.

His fake fur boots, we must say. Cause the whole iceberg-thing might not have been so politically correct, Karl did use fake fur for this collection. He commented: ‘You cannot fake chic but you can be chic in fake fur’ and explained that fake fur, nowadays, looks very realistic. Because you can hardly see the difference between real and fake fur Karl decided this collection was to be a ‘triumph for fake fur’. The fur came in brown, gray, white and black and was seen on the skirts, boots, pants, cuffs, coats, bags and collars.

Other fabrics were leather and the typical Chanel tweed. Tweed was, of course, used for some of the short jackets, but we saw it on some coats, pants and skirts too. The skirts were rather short, compared to, for example those of Marc Jacobs. They ended halfway the upper leg. The collars of almost all designs were high, as were the waisted pants.

Apart from a little bit of red Karl didn’t use any colors. The show ended with the last models all wearing white designs. Even the necklaces and the large rings were white (they were metallic during the first part of the show). It all looked stunning with the real, white iceberg in the background. Yet we think an iceberg from papier-mache would have been just as nice.

Catwalktrends ss2010: showstopping shoes

The designers gave the models a hard time walking the runway to show the spring/summer collections. The shoes they had to wear often had eye-catching shapes and heights.

The shoes in the Jil Sander show had iron pins for heels. Donatella Versace used platform shoes. John Galliano’s shoes were extremely high and his stiletto heels seemed to be made of colored pearls. Chanel introduced a few clogs.

Some models in the Dsquared show had spikes all over their shoes. Viktor & Rolf embellished theirs with pink flowers, Vivienne Westwood decorated hers with wings. Matthew Williamson’s shoes had bows.

Next to the ultra high shoes we saw ultra-flat sandals (Issey Miyake, Anna Sui, Valentino, Lacoste, Etro, Armani, Chloe). Those sandals, snake leather and wearing socks in open shoes seem to become the trends for this spring.

Of course the Alexander McQueen shoes were real showstoppers. His shoes were high, had crazy alienated shapes and had reptile prints all over them. Gaga oehlala…

Trends ss2010: step by step

For some models walking the runway was a tough job in the past fashion weeks. Of course the shoes were to blame. Not only were they high as ever, they also had the craziest shapes. They seemd somewhat inspired by clogs and that made them look rather clumsy. The most outstanding examples of this ‘clog-shoe’ were those of Alexander McQueen. He showed some great fashion forward ones, which were no less than twelve inches high. With reptile prints they looked futuristic and animalistic at the same time. Passing by to the beat of Lady Gaga’s new song they indeed looked rather Gaga to us. Yet they might become a huge hit. At least McQueen wasn’t the only designer with clog-shoes in his show. Celine, Dior, DSquared, Givenchy, Bottega Veneta and Ferré showed some clog-variations as well. And not to forget Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Their Swedish clog-like shoes will probably become the most copied of all next spring. (Tess van Daelen)

Paris Fashion Week ss2010 Impressions #25

Paris Fashion Week ss2010 Impressions #24

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