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Chanel Couture’s Romantic Midnight Glory

All that glitters will frequently be in black this fall, especially at Chanel, whose latest haute couture show, staged Tuesday, July 5, in Paris, recreated the city’s most elegant square, Place Vendome, in all its late night glory.

Instead of the square’s famed bronzed green column topped by Napoleon, the set starred a huge transparent column on which perched an effigy of Coco Chanel, arms akimbo, straw hat on her head - the centerpiece of a virtual 18th century square created by trompe l’oeil fluorescent tubing neon lights and Perspex copies of Vendome’s triple bulb street lights.

A masterly setting for a memorable collection of gleaming dark fabrics, worn by models on a glistening anthracite runway. Glitter even covered the long terrace benches on which the audience of some 2,000 sat.

“A dark tale dating from 1640,” explained Karl Lagerfeld of the medieval feeling and the chain mail like fabrics of much of this collection.

For fall, Lagerfeld suggests a power silhouette of broad shoulders and deep gorge neckline, used in a series of boucle opening suits.

His most audacious ideas were for early evening, cutting a slew of mini tops with stiff peplums, mostly worn over tight skirts and a great succession of darkly transparent boots. This autumn, Chanel’s famed wool boucle suits practically glisten with silver embroidery and shiny embellishment.

Lagerfeld’s finale had a dashing layered effect – tiers of fabric mixes with pearl embellished tops, shoulders dripping with crystals and sequins and columns finished with chards of chiffon. Talk about putting a couture atelier through its paces.

Unlike Chanel’s last Paris runway outing, the perhaps overly somber post-apocalyptic prêt-a-porter in March, this was a darkly romantic moment, best epitomized by the sprightly boaters with pleated silk trim and lace blindfolds worn by dozens of models.

Chanel staged the show at 10pm, the latest official couture show in living memory, as the gigantic steel and glass roof of the Grand Palais, constructed for Paris' Universal Exposition of 1900, floods with light during the day.

Entitled “Les Allures de Chanel,” the collection program was a sketch of two chic Parisian ladies in charcoal outfits chatting animatedly, one talkative, the other attentive, both like taller and lither versions of Mademoiselle Chanel.

Rarely have we witnessed a better homage to a fashion house’s founder. Coco Chanel would have been pleased.
Black clad waiters even served a new cocktail, the Coco Chanel, a blend of vodka, lemon juice and cinnamon, as the audience strolled into the looming space.

Even the brilliant techno rock soundtrack by ace DJ Michel Gaubert featured dramatic chords from works by Igor Stravinsky. And, let’s not forget, the Russian composer was Coco’s lover in the ‘20s.

		* Thom Browne Spring 2014 * Delpozo Spring 2014