Cosmopolitan Elegance. Chanel Pre-Fall 2017

April 25, 2023January 6, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

On Monday, May 1st, the 2023 Met Gala will take place. This year’s Costume Institute exhibition, “A Line of Beauty,” will celebrate the oeuvre and life of Karl Lagerfeld. The exhibition will see Andrew Bolton and Wendy Yu, curators in charge, examine the work of Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019). Throughout his lifetime, Lagerfeld worked at prominent fashion houses such as Balmain, Chloé, Fendi, Chanel, in addition to founding his namesake brand. More than 150 pieces will be on display in the exhibition, many of which will be accompanied by Lagerfeld’s sketches. In the following days, I will look back at my all-time favorite Chanel collections, designed by the one & only Karl. Hope some of these magnificent looks will end up on the red carpet on the first Monday in May…

“The Ritz is very gilded,” said Karl Lagerfeld, gesturing toward the decor of the newly refurbished Paris hotel as he held court on a plush velvet couch in the lobby. “Look, white with gold!” Sparkle, sequins, gold metallics, even gold-dipped feathers naturally became a festive-looking thread in the Chanel Métiers d’Art 2017 collection. Coco Chanel famously lived at the Ritz from 1937 throughout World War II, and died here in 1971. The house of Chanel is steps away from the hotel’s back door, on the Rue Cambon. Lagerfeld’s angle, though, wasn’t the life of Chanel herself, but, he emphasized, “cosmopolitan elegance and people from all over the world who’ve come to the Ritz. There were hundreds of dinners in the ’20s and ’30s, where women wore incredible things. But you cannot tell from the collection what decade it is, and I think that is modern, no?” The brilliantly chic show, which was served up in three sittings at lunch, tea, and dinnertime, sent a mixed bunch of lanky models, “daughters-of,” and Pharrell Williams winding their way around tables in the hotel lobby and a specially built “Jardin d’Hiver.” It made sense as a ready-made scene without any need for flown-in props. The Ritz is exactly where the international high-rolling couture customers billet themselves while shopping in Paris. Hair up in net veils decorated with roses, the girls pranced at a clip in midi skirts and Lurex pedal pushers, bubble-shaped capes, and square-shouldered jackets. There were skinny knit silvery dresses, a gorgeous white lace poet-sleeved blouse with a black leather cape and pants, a navy sheared mink tailored coat piped in gold leather, and tiered skirts flouncing out from narrow dropped-waist bodices. It was less a look than a cocktail menu of individual styles, really. But as Lagerfeld put it, that is the measure of the distance between Coco Chanel’s time and ours. “In those days, even to the ’60s, there were one or two designers who dictated what everyone wore. That is not the case today, when there are thousands of images of fashion available, so anyone can choose to wear what suits her.” Just as long as they belong to the Chanel glitterati, in this case.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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All-Out Femininity. Chanel SS’2004 Couture

April 24, 2023April 25, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

“Paradox. A mix of severity and frivolity,” said Karl Lagerfeld, explaining his high concept for Chanel’s spring-summer 2004 haute couture. “That’s what modern sexiness is: ambiguity.” Think an impeccable plain jacket contradicted by a frothy-and-flounce skirt, or a cloudy tulle shrug grounded by a plumb line-straight column of black crêpe. Or perhaps a dress cut as sportily as a tank at the top that becomes a trail of extravagant frills by the time it reaches the floor. The last, worn by Liya Kebede and glinting with silver sequins, is an eternal natural for the red carpet. And the feather cape worn by the show’s bride – Alek Wek – was another Hollywood-perfect moment. There was a new sense of restraint in this collection. By rebalancing delicacy with discipline, Lagerfeld put just as much emphasis on defining the Chanel jacket as on all-out femininity. Those jackets – narrow, linear, and undecorated – hit at the top of the hip without a hint of cinch or cling, the better to contrast with a tulle puff of a skirt below. He also flipped the intellectual equation by working upper-body volume in billowing poet blouses paired with something straight and to the knee. Of course, making an elegant withdrawal from overt display is all relative when it comes to the haute couture. Intertwined with Lagerfeld’s play of opposites was the subtle planting of 3 million euros’ worth of spectacular Chanel fine jewelry.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Chanel AF. Chanel SS’97 Couture

April 19, 2023April 21, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

First up is the stunning spring-summer 1997 haute couture collection. It’s a Lagerfeld collection that can be simply summed up as “Chanel af“. Behind the scenes, Amanda Harlech, a trusted arbiter of taste, jumped from Dior to Chanel just in time to put finishing touches on a collection of what Karl Lagerfeld described as nonexistent dresses and exploded shoes. “It’s hysterical Chanel,” the designer said. Harlech expanded on that, telling Hamish Bowles, “It’s about Chanel proportions and luxury pushed to absolute nervous-breakdown extremes!” Just as the rooms he showed in at the Ritz were veiled with tulle, so Lagerfeld wrapped his creations in luxury, replacing buttons with real pearls or diamond camellia clip brooches. Adding a sense of fun were the dramatic headpieces by Philip Treacy, some of which bobbed atop heads like antennae tuned into chic. There were LBDs galore, along with wide-legged pantsuits, however the “unbearable lightness of being” Lagerfeld was after was to be found in the evening looks, many with silhouettes that nodded to the late ’20s and early ’30s—Coco Chanel’s own heyday. Shalom Harlow wore the collection’s pièce de résistance: a feather-white strapless confection, which looked as if it were crafted from air. Over a stem of pale chiffon, the atelier had constructed a 3-D “cage” of many, many camellias made of sequins, and then cut the fabric ground away so that it resembled a Wilson Bentley photograph of a snowflake or the tracery of a stained glass window. Possibly, that’s one of the chicest collection ever in fashion history.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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The Holiday Album. Meryll Rogge AW23

April 15, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

The comedy (and drama) of a family portrait is one of the concepts that informed Meryll Rogge’s autumn-winter 2023 collection. Called “The Holiday Album“, it was inspired by a variety of sources, from Home Alone to Rogge’s very personal memories of Y2k – the event and the aesthetic. The Belgian designer’s latest collection included a group of ski-thermal pieces including a body-con dress and bodysuit with unexpected pockets that complimented the more directly ski and apres-ski looks, like quilted nylon outerwear and tulle-padded pants. The snowiest and most luxe piece was a hand-worked upcycled shearling coat. Only a few will be made. What was notable about the suiting this season was the trouser silhouette; Rogge opted for cigarette – or in the context of this collection, maybe peppermint stick is a better description – legs. Those grays were overpowered by the more vibrant and extravagant party looks. Known for her hybrid pieces, the designer not only fused tartan to denim jeans, but added a sort of fishtail or kick hem, revealing the lining that flutters as the wearer walks. Plaids were also made into more pajama-like looks. Conifers seemed to have inspired the A-line shapes, while Christmas tree tinsel was translated into crinkled metallics and satins, and many pieces were ornamented with large, dense, sequins. One of the best bits of the offering was a deconstructed dress in pink satin with mismatched vintage buttons. Roses stood in for poinsettias, too obvious a reference, the designer said, and they added dimensionality and fun to a pair of Rudolf-red briefs and a glorious, hand-embroidered dress with a Poiret-like silhouette. There was even a boxy “present” dress of red Lurex, the most literal take on the theme. This kind of very eclectic, general incoherence made sense in light of the (now very well exhausted) Y2K theme, and because holidays bring disparate family members (chosen or real) together.

Here are some of my favourite Meryll Rogge pieces you can shop right now:

Meryll Rogge blue and white shirt

Meryll Rogge beige trousers

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Atonal Glamour. GmbH AW23

April 2, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

By the end of March, we’ve learnt that Benjamin Huseby and Serhat Işık are stepping down from their creative director roles at Trussardi. The exit came on the heels of the resignation of the Italian company’s entire board of directors, which has also prompted the departure of CEO Sebastian Suhl. In other words, Trussardi is a financial shipwreck, with its future looking very, very misty. The good thing about this event is that these two brilliant designers will be able to again fully focus on their Berlin-based label, GmbH – which to be very frank is a way more fascinating endeavor to be invested in creatively than Trussardi.

For autumn-winter 2023, Huseby and Işık tried something new at their label. Nothing says couture more than an oversize bow, and there was more than one of them – as well as stoles and streamers – in the GmbH collection, which might be described as a study in atonal glamour. The lookbook pictures are a world away from the smoky, dark setting of the performance the designers staged in Paris with the help of friends from their hometown. Dancers from its city ballet performed to the live music of Labour, using gestures to convey elegance through different lenses. Their glitch-like movements referenced both the hauteur of ’50s couture and its reclamation by marginal communities in the ballroom (vogueing) and drag cultures. At GmbH changing the focus from personal history and trauma to fashion history was, noted Huseby, “a way of finding freedom with fashion for us.” Added Isik: “I also think we are really interested in challenging ourselves with taking on full-on glamour because it’s not something that we’re necessarily associated with, or even so comfortable with.” No jitters were revealed in this confident collection, which the designers said included references to Yves Saint Laurent and Azzedine Alaïa. Many signature silhouettes were back, such as the short coat dress, but it was transformed – and transformable – with streamers that could be tied tight to bound the corset or fly free, with a train-like sweep. The off-the-shoulder bow tops in velvet or with big bows were especially unexpected takes on menswear. Huseby and Isik have been recontextualizing womenswear tropes in menswear since the beginning, but it hit different within the “couture” framework of this collection.