Tim Blanks must be thrilled he can use his word of the week... cuissardes...except for the fact that they really are present in this collection, albeit some are in parts, as opposed to where he thought he saw them ”slashed” yesterday. And with that little bit of trivial pretentious nonsense out of the way... let the games begin….
It has got to be good to be king as no one has the abilities and balls that he has when he shows. Okay, so now I will talk about the amazingly incredible scale of the presentation... firstly in the Grand Palais and secondly.... almost 80 freakin pieces!!! He manages to never allow the venue to dwarf the clothes he shows and that is no small feat given the comparative proportions. This is HUBRIS in way that is diametrically opposed to what we saw yesterday besides the fact that Hr. Lagerfeld has earned his right to exercise that particular brand of arrogance!
He shows with no restraint other than maybe a color palette and whatever his whim might be this season. This season it is all about black and white mostly a but of color thrown in here and there, but the story and the glory is in the black and white. One of the dangers for any Fall season is the possibility that the clothes will look bulky or worse still will make the wearer look …. Shall we say bulky? Mr. Lagerfeld is not exempt from the conundrum but he overcomes with easily with excess of styles that he shows. But, I digress, a big fixation is the layering that is going on and it includes his “boots’ which might comprise of 1 or 2 or 3 parts and pretty damned amazing. The funnel neck is a recurring theme, the modified cutaway or swallowtail jacket appears in several incarnations and yes the pleated skirts and tweeds.
To try and describe it all is futile, but suffice it to say when it is good, it is great and when he errs … well so what! The overload of pieces and nuances and possibilities can keep most manufacturers busy for years but for Chanel, it is just another season … bless them!
Accessories are going to be flying out of the boutiques and the silver toned metal jewelry business will experience a huge upturn from this collection. The skull cap cum mink trapper's hat will be all over the streets for next fall in everything from polar fleece to chinchilla. The shoes are from...wait for it … sensible to cowboy to thigh high boots or as Mr. Blank might call them … cuissardes!
There were some truly extraordinary little black dresses, a globe minaudiere for the most voracious of Chanel clients, a zip front georgette vest and a tweed anorak that I thought was incredibly modern and certainly chic.
Well, back to the beginning, it is good to Karl and even better that he shares his profligate library of ideas season after season there is always something to talk about … and mostly of the good and not bad! I prefer not to think of a time when there isn’t!
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