The Style Files : Taking to the skies with Chanel...
Over the past few years, the Chanel show has become the most decadent, grandest, most masterfully produced spectacle of fashion month, with elaborate, immersive sets that have transported the audiences to Maharaja Banquets, Chanel Supermarket, Coco’s Suffragette Rally and Brasserie Gabrielle. Not a brand known for its paired back, minimalist approach, last week Karl Lagerfeld converted the Grand Palais into the world's most fashionable airport. The set had everything you’d expect from the world’s fanciest airport: a massive departures board, branded luggage trolleys, and flight attendants to help with check-in.
The show held a subtle message, too. Considering that air travel is one of the least glamorous of all the “leisure” activities rocking up to the airport in slob-comfort attire is no longer acceptable. Chanel (or Chanel inspired for the majority of us) to the rescue - with a flight-themed collection that contained a surprising number of chic and ostensibly flight-friendly items.
The collection featured loose jersey trousers that could be described as posh track-pants, and silky wide legged trousers and shirts fit for the first class lounge. Ease of movement was a big feature, with lots of chain-mail necklaces and tied layers — shirts and feather-light separates were knotted at the waist — and the trademark tweeds were soft, clean and uniformly smart.
This was a clever collection with something to please almost everyone: wide trousers; gorgeous cocktail-wear, smothered in heavy crystals; neat, narrow, knee-length skirts and full, floaty, shin-length ones; suits with tunic tops and suits with more conventional jackets.
The accessories were equally cool – Chanel wheelie suitcases, Chanel luggage tags and metal hair bows that kept their flight-friendly double pony-tails in place. Make-up was kept to frosted blue eyeshadow and nude lips.
The Chanel shows have progressively become about more than just fashion There were beautiful clothes but the message here was so much bigger than that of which skirt length will be key next season (mid-calf and flared, as it happens). Possessing a Chanel show ticket has become something akin to finding Willy Wonka's golden ticket, a fully realised first-class experience which is not only about the fashion but the experience as well.
By Minoli Ratnayake
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