PARIS: Chanel took the fashion set on an exotic beach getaway for its catwalk show on Tuesday, as models wearing the French couture house’s trademark tweed suits and sun hats strolled barefoot along the sand, waves lapping at their feet.
The 85-year-old produced a winningly youthful and colourful collection to lift the spirits of jaded fashionistas on the last day of a marathon month of shows in New York, London and Milan.
As lifeguards looked on, models showed off strappy dresses, some adorned with coral details or brightly colored sequined swirls, while silky numbers came with parasol motifs. The collection, for spring and summer 2019, also featured chunky tweed jackets worn over cropped black trousers, and accessories including gloves with zip-on pouches.
Led by the designer’s latest muse, Dutch-born Luna Bijl, models walked barefoot through waves which lapped onto the white sand thanks to a set of hidden pistons.
Catwalk queens including Cara Delevingne and Cindy Crawford’s daughter Kaia Gerber came up from the beach and slipped into low mules to strut the boardwalk runway. Meanwhile, A-list celebrities including The Princess of Thailand Sirivannavari Nariratana graced the front-row.
Chanel’s veteran designer Karl Lagerfeld, in his 80s, appeared at the end of the show wearing black to wave to the crowd from a beach hut.
Most of the time, Chanel’s spectacular sets are as talked about as the clothes. But this time the clothes had a lot to say for themselves.
The veteran creator hit the sweet spot from his oversized Chanel jackets and 1960s-style egg-shell blue trapeze coat dress to a long line of classy casual looks using the show’s beach umbrella motif.
From the clothes themselves and a new line of big crystal necklaces, belts and earrings, the label’s name also turned up on a set of double-billed straw hats with CHA at the front and NEL at the back.
With Lagerfeld insisting that the only thing better than a Chanel bag is having two, he sent out Bijl and a few of his other stars carrying two classic Chanel bags slung across the body, one in each hand like a pair of six-shooters.
In the past Lagerfeld has turned the vast Grand Palais into an ocean liner, a rocket launch pad, the world’s chicest supermarket and controversially a mid-winter wood full of trees.
After environmentalists attacked Chanel in March for felling decades-old oaks for its autumn-winter collection, the label said it would now “attempt to recycle, reuse and or find alternative uses for the materials” it uses in its shows.
Having grown a snowy white beard earlier this year, Lagerfeld seems to be embracing change, ditching his trademark shades for the second time in a week after turning up to Hedi Slimane’s debut at Celine in a new pair of black-framed glasses.
And in a nod to the atelier of designers and craftswomen who have long supported him, Lagerfeld took the bow alongside his head of studio Virginie Viard, one of the label’s behind-the-scenes heroines.
