Actresses Kristen Stewart and Julianne Moore played roulette in Karl
Lagerfeld’s celebrity-studded runway casino Tuesday where the fashion
legend used 3D printing for a futuristic version of the classic Chanel
suit.
In a typically elaborate staging — last year he recreated a Parisian bistro
on the runway — Lagerfeld showed his first of two couture collections at
Paris Fashion Week, with his all-fur production for Fendi on Wednesday seen as
one of the highlights of the five-day fashion extravaganza.
British singer Rita Ora, French singer Vanessa Paradis and her daughter with
Johnny Depp, Lily-Rose, were also featured as high rollers sat around roulette
tables in the centre of the runway. Slot machines circled the perimeter of
the muted, cosy room where models in
sharply-cut black bobs, with bright lipstick and thickly-spread blush took
to
the runway in an atmosphere of the heady 1920s.
The iconic Chanel suit sported square-cut shoulders and boxy jackets, appearing
three dimensional thanks to a technique called selective laser sintering
which Lagerfeld used to take the look into the 21st century. The technique
sees a laser aimed into space where it binds powdered material according to
a 3D model, creating a solid structure.
“The idea is to take the most iconic jacket of the 20th century and make a 21st
century version, which technically was unimaginable in the period when it was
born,” Lagerfeld told AFP after the show. “The vest is one piece, there is
no sewing, it is moulded.” The Chanel designer said the technique “widens
haute couture” and would be used more and more in the future.
“What keeps couture alive, is to move with the times. If it stays like sleeping
beauty in the woods in an ivory tower, you can forget it,” he said. “The
women who buy couture today are not the bourgeoises of the past, they are
young, modern women.” The haute couture designation is protected by French
law and attributed exclusively by the ministry of industry to 14 houses
whose clothes are entirely made by hand and tailored to each client.
‘On another planet’
Lagerfeld’s dresses had layered skirts or a high-low hem — short in the front
and long in the back — and as seen in several other collections this week,
grazed ankles and necklines plunged nearly to the navel. One dress was
almost entirely made out of feathers, with a gold collar. The show was
capped by model Kendall Jenner as the Chanel bride in a white trouser suit
with a long bridal train.
Lagerfeld said his modern clients were also a lot richer than when Coco Chanel
first started out, when mostly women from America or South America would
fly to Paris to see couture collections. “Today it is private jets that
transport clothes for women to try on around the globe. At Chanel we have
four haute couture workshops with hundreds of workers: they are always
snowed under.
“It is a clientele which doesn’t show itself, which doesn’t come to the runway
shows, they live on another planet,” said Lagerfeld. He said his decor was
inspired by “the ambiance of casinos at a time when people dressed up.” “They
didn’t appear to try and win to pay the rent at the end of the month. Today
casinos are a bit more dreary because people no longer get dolled up.”
On Wednesday the indefatigable Lagerfeld, 81, will unveil a collection
celebrating
his 50 years with Italy’s Fendi, which has hailed the “longest relationship
between a designer and a fashion house.” The show will be entirely “haute
fourrure” or couture fur — a material the luxury fashion brand has never
shied away from. (Fran Blandy and Anne Laure Mondesert, AFP)
Images: British Vogue