The invitation for this season’s show displayed an illustration of a skeletal leaf – a clear hint to a floral theme – but also to a beautiful fragility, something the Chanel Couture atelier is well renowned for. The invitation did not dissapoint. There was such beauty in this collection and such intangible frangibility that emanated from every element. Miss Haversham’s hair was ethereally Gothic and was off-set perfectly by a smudged smoky eye completed with dragged-out crows feet. One could imagine our tortured, Dickensian character floating in and out of this garden of earthly delights.
The Chanel tweed was presented in the palest of colours and twinned with a boot both long and half mast – in this instance meeting more tweed in the form of a cropped trouser – created in the most delicate of lace and reminiscent of the form of the leaf that came from the aforementioned invitation. The boots were a triumph and appeared with every exit, in silver and black leather, and a myriad of lace and served to modernise the dresses they were paired with. This layering effect has been strong in the collections so far – it’s made an appearance both at Dior and Giambattista Valli, as a trouser teamed with a dress – however though complementary, these where things of beauty and delight in themselves.
The shoulder featured heavily in this collection, whether wrapped in a mini cape or exposed in floral or sequined pieces and balcony silhouettes, it is being revisited as a delightful erogenous zone.
The atelier’s mastery was of course undeniable in the collection: sequined dresses with embroidered flowers over the top, feathers, swathes of tulle layered and caught to voluminous effect – and let us not forget the lace – worked with either simply flowing gowns, or mixture of tailoring and volume. The collection has a tight colour balance with a few excursions to the palest of pastels the core was white, black and red – Madame Coco would have approved. A particular favourite: a tulle-layered gown with crystals decorating the edge, teamed with a hip line, no-collar jacket in black sequin with white and red plummed birds flying across it. It was of course complimented by a lace boot.
The highlight of any Chanel couture show is always the bride – and this season’s offering was both beautiful and poignant. For this show there was not one, but two, brides that walked hand in hand through the garden with Lagerfeld’s godson Hudson Kroenig as pageboy, celebrating the union of marriage. Dresses in matching white tulle, feather and lace – Miss Haversham’s dream if ever there was one – was gothic perfection, but the double act served another purpose, to highlight the marches against the legalisation of same sex marriage in France last week.
It is unsettling to know that a country that can produce such beauty can also refuse to see it in others and it comes down to the master couturier Lagerfeld to show us this, in the most graceful and delicate way.
by Marie-Louise von Haselberg
Images courtesy of style.com
