At Chanel this season Karl Lagerfeld’s interpretation of the lady of the maison was once again suitably and sometimes unconventionally app. Befitting her with all her accoutrements and gilt-edged buttons, Lagerfeld gave us his take on the Parisian brasserie, dubbed Brasserie Gabrielle, and cast stable-mates Cara Delevingne, Kendall Jenner and Joan Smalls as Chanel’s AW ladies who lunch.
You simply have to hand it to him, 98 looks down and who could tire of any of them. Each ensemble did its best to bring something new to the house whilst retaining the brand’s intricacies of knit, pattern, print and directional fabric marvels.
In a chic redux, heels were back – albeit low and slung-back and this more appropriate air of sophistication came to impart pure charm upon the entire collection in no time at all. The impracticalities that Karl likes to mess around with to keep his Chanel-heads sweet, like the plate clutch bag, supplied a dash of frolic to the more classic fashions on show. Next to that, the alluring interplay between waitress-esque monochrome suits and Chanel’s signature stately femininity meant the tweedy forays were much more compelling this season than they have been for a long while.
Additionally, the majority of this season’s less attention-seeking silhouettes followed the bodies contours logically, instilling the easy grace Chanel should rightfully stand for. Lagerfeld’s aptitude for spinning a fairly innocuous and seen-before theme into an engaging act of repartee shows his bona fide strength of character as an all-powerful fashion force behind one of the most consistently relevant fashion houses around.
by Liam Feltham
Images courtesy of Style.com