BANG BANG, KARL DID IT AGAIN

You can come up with several answers to the question why Chanel has been the ultimate name in fashion for decades, but one of the reasons is undeniably the way the French fashion house manages to reinvent themselves continually without losing touch with their basis.

A way of securing that basis is done by Chanel’s purchase of crafts businesses with a long lineage, like the Scottish cashmere manufacturer Barry Knitwear, the French glove manufacturer Causse, and recently, the famous tannery Bordin-Joyeux. Chanel celebrates these old crafts with their Métier D’art shows of which the latest took place in Dallas, Texas yesterday evening. A remarkable location for the French fashion house’s presentation, you might think, but Dallas was the city in which Coco Chanel’s after war collection was welcomed with open arms by department store Neiman Marcus, after having received no such welcome in France.

Karl Lagerfeld, like Coco back in 1954, was honoured by the American department store with an award for distinguished service in fashion, and so this full circle moment functioned as the theme for their spectacular show and short film. An enormous drive-in cinema was built especially for the event, where the invites, a.o. Anna Wintour, Lily Collins, Dakota Fanning and of course this line’s new face, Kristen Stewart, got to see The Return. A short film directed by Kaiser Karl about Coco’s after war comeback.   

Subsequently, it was time for the runway show that took us back to the old wild West. We saw a lot of leather, suede with fringes, coats with horse blankets and turquoise accessories. The classic Chanel suit was cut a tad more angularly, with a skirt that reached far beyond the knees, which was paired with big boots. Nice detail; model Erin Wasson — who originally comes from Texas — wore  Chanel No. 5 bottles in her sheaths. Bang bang, Karl did it again.

By: Charlene Heezen