Beneath the soaring glass domes of the Grand Palais, the Chanel set transported us to the undersea world of Karl Lagerfeld;
an aquatic wonderland of gleaming white stingrays and sea horses adrift
amongst coral branches and shells on a sandy sea bed. Lagerfeld had
promised “the ground of the sea, but in a very poetic way,” and his
models, meandering through this dramatic set to a techno soundtrack
abstracted from Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” looked like magical
deep-sea sirens, from the pearls scattered in their hair to the sea-
urchin shells that propped up the heels of their sandals.
Lagerfeld
deconstructed some of the house symbols. Coco’s iconic pearls were used
as buttons or as belts to girdle his round-shouldered dresses, and
Lagerfeld banished her signature braid trims altogether in place of fine
black ribbon set in geometric blocks across pale suiting, a detail
inspired by the “fabric paintings” of German abstract artist Blinky
Palermo that he had admired in a recent exhibition at Dia.
Lagerfeld
worked with innovative techno fabrics to create the effect of light
through water. Airy waffle-textured organzas and iridescent synthetics,
open-weave tweeds and knits, and a palette of sea foam, shell pink, and
mother-of-pearl (anchored with the inevitable black) created an
otherworldly effect.
And the details brought a whisper of the haute couture to the ready-to-wear season; changeante
organza ribbons were appliquéd to trail across little shift dresses
like seaweed swaying in a riptide; silvery embroideries or a frosting of
nacreous sequins spilled down black dresses like the phosphorescence on
a moonlit sea.
Swimsuits were anchored by pearl clasps or
veiled in clear plastic “virtual jackets” printed with a tracery of fine
black swirling lines like seaweed washed up on a seashore.
The
technical mastery of this house was also revealed in the elaborate
pleating and draping techniques that transformed diaphanous organza and
(specially commissioned) seaweed motif lace into shapes and formations
that recalled corals, seashells, and waving underwater algae, and
provided the most complex takes on the pleated skirts that have become
such a strong trend of the season.
As the final short evening
dresses appeared (frothed with ruffles at the hips like lightweight
eighteenth-century panniers—or reduced to a single flounce), a giant
oyster shell opened to reveal Florence Welch (in a silvery dress
trailing strands of seaweed ribbon), whose plangent tones brought the
show to a spectacular end.
