Thursday, July 14, 2011

Chanel Haute Couture F/W 11.12 - Improved and Updated

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PARIS, July 5, 2011
By Tim Blanks
Karl Lagerfeld recently acquired a full set of stills from 1927's apocalyptic sci-fi classic Metropolis, signed by the film's director Fritz Lang to its young star Brigitte Helm. It was sheer coincidence, however, that there was aMetropolis feel to the set for today's Chanel haute couture show. Or was it? The backdrop for the presentation was a neon-limned mock-up of the Place Vendôme, with Napoleon replaced at the top of his column by a robot Coco. (In Lang's movie, a mad scientist makes a robot replica of Helm.) The set was dark and glistening, like rain had just fallen. A perfect film noir atmosphere, in other words. And Lagerfeld had the perfect script for it—Coco's own life story.

At least that was one way to look at a collection that seemed to chop through time. It clearly wasn't a chronological arc. The show opened with Chanel tweed suits, which didn't make their appearance until the twenties, and it closed with "lamp shade" evening silhouettes that echoed the work of Paul Poiret, the early twentieth-century Parisian designer whom Chanel helped render irrelevant with her innovations. Michel Gaubert's soundtrack, meanwhile, created an aural equivalent of the temporal mash-up by following new English pop with bursts of Stravinsky (he was Coco's lover in the twenties). But Lagerfeld had already prepared us for this when he called the collection Les Allures de Chanel. Plural—he wanted to emphasize her multifacetedness.

But, if the clothes themselves were any guide, he also wanted to preserve Coco's mystery. The collection was so dominated by shades of black, gray, and midnight blue that the odd accents of fuchsia looked like less-than-happy accidents. Even when Lagerfeld used white, he defused it with a drizzle of dark beading or a shadowy veil or even a glittery black tank. The mood felt like an organic follow-on from the dystopia of the Fall ready-to-wear show. As with that collection, the lack of compromise, particularly with the tricky peplum-over-narrow-skirt silhouette, could challenge brand fans. But the somber luxury of the wardrobe Karl Lagerfeld is proposing for dark times is immensely seductive.


Here is a selection of looks from the runway. You can see the full collection here.
Arizona Muse
Patricia van der Vliet

Liu Wen
Sasha Pivovarova
(Anna Wintour wore this dress practically STRAIGHT off the runway, to receive an award the next day)
Arizona Muse

Freja Beha Erichsen

Siri Tollerod


Fei Fei Sun

Kinga Rajzak

Bianca Balti


Hanaa Ben Abdesslem


Liu Wen


Sasha Pivovarova

6 comments:

  1. While I'm not a Chanel girl, I like the sparkle that Karl's put into the suits. And the one that Sasha wore, and Anna Wintour bought is actually a killer suit! I can't imagine anyone under 60 wearing it, but it's beautiful. I don't like the boots and the styling, but as usual, there are a lot of pieces in here that would look KILLER when paired with something that's not Chanel. And I love the sheer gloves, the lace over the eyes and the hats. And the setting is incredible. So for a Chanel show, I actually liked it more than I expected.

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  2. The texture of the suits bother me. I don't know why but I feel itchy just looking at them.

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  3. lol. I'm imagining they aren't itchy, because couture has always been about making clothes that feel incredible, not just look incredible. But tweed always looks itchy to me. I wonder what they're going to do when that old lady who does the braiding dies? She's the only person in the world who knows how to braid the tweed in the distinctive Chanel way.

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  4. It's not just the tweed but everything feels itchy, the lace, the feathers. I am just not loving any of it. It feels old and styled and overworked. It's not fluid or natural but staged. I am so not a fan. I feel like this wasn't the worst couture show but the biggest fail in my opinion. I had a lot of hopes for Chanel but I was let down.

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  5. Lol how could you have hopes after the disaster that was their Resort collection? Bye Karl! Why couldn't he have been the one to get drunk and racist instead of Galliano?

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  6. Exactly!!! I had hopes because Resort is a disaster in and of itself. I hoped for couture there would be some beauty.

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