Karl Lagerfeld is stripping things back for AW16. Well, slightly.
Karl Lagerfeld is stripping things back for AW16. Well, slightly. At his Chanel show in Paris this morning, there was no grand supermarché set, no star performer, no Florence Welch emerging from a giant clam shell... His set up was just a simple designer salon with a single front row. Except that said front row was 2,000 seats long and swirled around and around the Grand Palais venue. Oh you didn’t think Karl would do things that quietly did you?
Here’s what you need to know about Paris Fashion Week’s biggest talking point…
Everyone Sat Front Row So yes, everyone had a front row seat - How very democratic. Karl must have set a world record for the longest ever FROW, lining up his gold chairs to create a runway maze for the models to walk through. The golden ticket hinted to the theme, with a single chair illustrated by Karl himself, loaded with the hashtag #FrontRowOnly.
The Collection Was Classic And Beautiful All the best Chanelisms were at play today – pearls, tweed suits, even Coco’s bowler hat was reworked in gold and silver. For once there was no overarching theme, no gimmick at play - and that became a statement of its own, clever Karl. His salon environment allowed everyone to see those exquisite details up close – the house’s iconic quilt re-imagined in snuggling great wrap coats, rich, heavy embroideries decorating sleeves on dresses and smudged graphite floral prints dominating separates.
See every single look in the gallery above.
All Of Our Favourite IT-Girls Walked Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Lindsey Wixon, Edie Campbell… it was one of the best model line-ups of the season.
Celebrities And Mortals Mingled On The Front Row Of course, when everyone’s front row, nobody is really that special. But it’s still fun to pick an A-lister or two out of a crowd, isn’t it? Pharrell, Karen Elson and Willow Smith came to watch the spectacle, the latter dressed in a futuristic, skin tight Chanel jumpsuit and giving the fashion paparazzi something to snap about. Well you would too if you were dressed in kick-ass couture on International Women's Day, wouldn't you?
