Couture Fashion Week 2013: Chanel, Dior, and Ulyana Sergeenko

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Chanel's Mary Queen Of Scots collection last season was fantastic, so I can only assume that Karl Lagerfeld used up his yearly quota of awesome on that one. Bearing in mind that this is a Couture show, one would think that it would be better than Pre-Fall. Not so. Instead, the theme (Weimar Germany... something...?) was unclear at best, and totally absent at worst As a kind of psychological palate-cleanser, I'm going to start this post with the ugliest outfit of the show, just so we can get it over with and move on to better things:

This looks like someone put a bunch of lei garlands in a blender, spackled them all over a tube dress, and accessorised it with an apron jacket worn by a Midwestern housewife in the 1980s. Karl Lagerfeld, what were you thinking?

Most of the show was rather more sedate. 68 looks in all, this collection was mostly dedicated to Chanel-classic suits, although the tailoring was unfortunately even boxier than usual. Most puzzling of all were the shoes, which in addition to being open-toed boots (WHY?), were attached to lacey leggings that looked itchily uncomfortable and made the models' legs look wrinkly and shapeless.

The one dress that I'd actually wear:

I find it constantly bizarre that for someone so pathalogically obsessed with thinness (both personally and for women in general), Lagerfeld designs clothes that are just... not slimming at all. I mean, the suits this season are pretty damn cuboid, but this dress is just... a cone. A cone with arm-protectors. No wonder the model is crying her mascara all over her face: her knees are bleeding because the dress is made of concrete and doesn't bend when she walks.

 This is what the woman from the blended-garlands picture wore to her Prom:

Instead of the traditional solo bridal dress finale, Lagerfeld ended the show with a pair of brides as a kind of "fuck you" to the gay marriage debate currently going on in France at the moment. I agree in spirit, but the gowns themselves were... really not all that great.

Dior
Dior relies upon the sweeping, formal gown in the same way that Chanel relies upon the skirt-suit. Moreso, really, since Chanel is really Lagerfeld's brand now, whereas Dior is still very much reliant upon the same designs it was producing in it's heyday, the 1950s. The hope is that new Creative Director Raf Simons will revitalise the brand and become their very own Lagerfeld (or a scandal-free Galliano), but I'm yet to be convinced.

Raf Simons' previous role was Creative Director at Jil Sander, where he introduced a very minimalist design style that led to the hugely popular colour-blocking trend that's been everywhere for the past couple of years. He wouldn't have been my first choice for a ladylike, old-fashioned brand like Dior, but perhaps Dior is trying to take a step away from ladylike and old-fashioned. Whether or not that was their actual aim, this show was not particularly impressive. It had little of the luxurious detail of recent Dior couture collections, seeming more like a combination of rather conservative classic Dior designs with a few jarringly unexpected Raf Simons outfits thrown in to remind everyone that he was there.

This yellow dress was one of my few genuine favourites. The two-layer cutaway is interesting, but the extreme simplicity of the shape and colour of the dress as a whole helped to balance it out. Honestly, it looks far more Raf Simons than Dior, but I'll take it.

 

Ulyana Sergeenko
I had nothing but good things to say about Ulyana Sergeenko's Couture show last year, and even though this was a little cheesier than expected, it had its good points.

In a complete u-turn from last year's nod to Sergeenko's Russian heritage, this collection was all about America. On the bright side, it didn't have any denim-clad cowboys, which is more than one can say for 99% of other USA-themed fashion shows. But it was guided by Hollywood's depiction of America (not exactly an unexplored topic in the world of fashion), leading to things like this pretty but somewhat pointless version of Scarlett O'Hara's green curtain dress in Gone With The Wind:

Rather more to my taste was this ultra-tailored black Puritan dress, which had a kind of fetishised conservatism that the goth in me just can't resist. I'm glad to see that Sergeenko is retaining the long, heavy skirts from her earlier work, since there are so few designers who ever go for this look. Most designers are so concerned with femininity and a slim silhouette that skirts like this are dismissed as unflattering, but Sergeenko is proving that they can be worn with style.

I'm not 100% clear on what this final outfit was supposed to be, but I'm pretty sure Tailor Swift is going to be wearing it in her next video.

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Chanel Pre-Fall 2013: Lagerfeld, King of Scots?

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As a Scot, I can be kind of snobbish about supposedly Scottish-themed fashion shows. However, this season's Chanel managed to avoid any of the expected ugly-tartan pitfalls and turned out to be just as spectacular as last year's Pre-Fall India collection. I suspect this is partly down to the fact that Karl Lagerfeld has the luxury of visiting Imaginary Scotland, which is significantly different from Real Scotland in that it primary contains castles and expensive whisky rather junkies, mud, and football hooliganism. Had it not been snowing on the night of the show, I can only assume that Lagerfeld would've hired kilt-wearing male models to grate ice-cubes onto the audience from the parapets above.

pics from Style.com

One of the problems with the backwards nature of fashion seasons is that when you're looking at Summer clothes it's usually Winter in real life, meaning that one's critical faculties are occasionally taken over by thoughts like: "WHY would anyone want to wear a floral miniskirt when everything is so damn cold?" Not so in this case, wherein the "Pre-Fall" (ie, Summer, as we would say in non-Fashionese) collection looks entirely suitable for the weather we're having in real life. I found it immensely comforting to know that all the models striding through the chilly hallways of Linlithgow castle got to wear flat shoes and blankets instead of looking knock-kneed and frostbitten as they so often do.

Lagerfeld's inspiration was a combination of Scottish history (specifically Mary Queen of Scots, who was born at Linlithgow castle) and Chanel heritage. Coco Chanel herself had close ties to Scotland, as she often stayed at the Scottish home of her lover the Duke of Westminster, and learned much about tweed and knitwear from the local clothing manufacturers. In fact, many of her masculine-styled suits were inspired by clothes she saw while on hunting parties in Scotland. The result of these two very different Scottish influences was a show mixing 16th century styles (MY FAVE; don't get me started on my love of pantaloons) and more typical (but still exquisite) knitwear and tweed outfits.

The reason for the unusual location this season was not due to a Lagerfeldian whim, for all that he embraced the Scottish theme. Over the past few years, Chanel has been producing collections honouring each of its offshoot workshops in turn. This year it's Scotland's Barrie Knitwear, which has been working with Chanel for decades but was only recently acquired by them (saving the company from liquidation, I believe).

I loved the warmth and layering in the more modern, street-style outfits. Lagerfeld can be very concerned with thinness (as a contrast to the traditionally boxy Chanel silhouette) so it was a welcome change to see these rather more padded-out styles. In some ways, several of them reminded me of traditional Russian and Eastern European-inspired designs such as those of Ulyana Sergeenko, possibly they acknowledge the existence of cold-weather clothes other than peacoats and cardigans.

I love both these outfits, even though neither are exactly my style. The above outfit has clear Mary Queen Of Scots-era inspirations in the form of the split-front skirt, whereas the outfit below is 100% mid-century Scottish Laird's wife.

OF COURSE my favourite section of the show was the series of outfits with clear links to the padded faux-armour of the 16th century. In most cases puffball skirts replaced outright pantaloons, but I loved the jackets tailored to resemble doublets, as well as all the ruff-like collars.

Oh, another detail I really appreciated about this show -- flat shoes. "Practical" isn't really something one expects from Chanel (especially Lagerfeld's Chanel), but this show proved that high-end designer clothes can be both interesting and comfortable.

Rather than the single traditional wedding dress at the end of the show, there was an entire final phase of white gowns -- all of them warm and taking certain elements of inspiration from Renaissance-era Scotland.

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Chanel, Spring 2013: At least there's no iceberg this time?

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What's the theme of this season's show? You know there must be one, because Karl Lagerfeld is in charge. This time last year it was an Under The Sea theme featuring Florence Welch emerging from a conch shell, but this one is a little more obscure. I'm going to let you mull it over a bit and then reveal the truth after the cut, so for now just take a gander at this outfit and try to divine its ~hidden meaning~.

pics from Style.com

Of all the challenges one has to face in order to reach the Fashionista's Stone, Lagerfeld's would surely be the Snape-style brain-teaser that relies too heavily on metaphor. Actually, the idea of Lagerfeld as Fashion Snape is worryingly believable... 
Yes, it's that obvious theme for a Spring fashion show: renewable energy! You can tell because there are a whole bunch of windmills and the runway was made to look like solar panels. And stuff

"Energy is the most important thing in life," said Lagerfeld, informative as always. Evidently he's already forgotten that one time he had an iceberg shipped in to adorn one of his previous fashion shows. That's so 2010.

 Aside from the characteristically out-there theme, the clothes themselves were relatively conservative and fit solidly within Chanel parameters. This being Spring RTW there were a lot of variations on the boxy Chanel suit, but made a little lighter and more summery by chopping the sleeves off at elbow level and cropping the jackets to bolero length.

Also usual for Chanel (or, more specifically, Lagerfeld's Chanel), was the focus on outfits for thin women. I'm yet to see a ready-to-wear Lagerfeld outfit that would work for anyone with big boobs, but since Lagerfeld is notoriously fat-phobic this doesn't come as a huge surprise. Much of this particular collection relied on a slim waist/bulky jacket combination that while flattering to some figures, is unlikely to work very well unless you're an A-cup or comfortable with looking like your upper torso abruptly triples in diameter somewhere around your sternum.

Oh, and there was an uncomfortable-looking photovoltaic panelling dress, because did you know there is a theme.

For all that I find Lagerfeld to be an endless source of entertainment, Chanel is never going to be the label for me. My favourite things from this show were undoubtedly the accessories: Bright, stripey wedge-heels, and wide-brimmed hats. I love the idea of a summer hat with a completely transparent brim; it's just so gloriously impractical. Wide-brimmed hats are terribly feminine and summery but transparent/shiny materials like this are generally seen as futuristic, the end result being what looks like an Ascot hat for characters in Blade Runner. 

As a postscript, I give you two of the worst outfits I have ever seen in a Chanel show. The fact that Lagerfeld approved the manufacture of a strapless denim minidress is surely something that will haunt him to the grave. [Edited to add: This outfit is even worse than I originally thought, because someone on twitter just pointed out to me that it makes her look like "one giant butt".]

I don't even know what this is supposed to be, but I hope no one buys it. It's like someone took one of the ABBA-themed costumes from Priscilla Queen Of The Desert and then tried to make it look as depressing as possible. And decided to glue some fishing lures all around the hems, for whatever reason. HORRIBLE.

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Chanel: Cruise 2013 at Versailles.

Previously: See the Chanel tag for further reports on Karl Lagerfeld's forays into a variety of intriguing design themes that usually boil down to "I'm stupendously rich."

Karl Lagerfeld and the court of Versailles -- to be honest, I can't believe this hadn't happened before. Lagerfeld, with his ever-present chalk-white ponytail, aura of eccentric aristocracy, and conscious detachment from the everyday wants and needs of the proles, couldn't fit in any better if he tried.

Studio photos from Chanel's lookbook; show photos from Style.com.

This being Chanel, the eighteenth-century French influences only went so far. For all that Lagerfeld adores extravagance when it comes to showmanship, he still adheres to the relatively sedate and conservative Chanel ethos. While this show was rather more cheeky and street-cool than many recent Chanel collections, it was mostly restricted to a calming colour palette of fondant-like pastels in Chanel-favoured fabrics.

The show took place at the gardens in Versailles, the models strutting around one of the fountains to a soundtrack of M.I.A. and harpsichord remixes. The styling choices were impeccable: a modern, Harajuku-like twist on powdered wigs in the form of two-tone pastel ponytail/pageboy haircuts, plus every model was wearing snazzy brothel-creepers. A nod to both the old and the new, alongside some cool Chanel-symbol beauty marks that, unlike the pale blue pageboy wigs, I suspect may make an appearance on actual humans outside of catwalk land.

The most direct Versailles influences were the pannier skirts and pantaloons, decked out in pastel frills and lace. Short and stylised, those outfits were 18th century by way of Lolita and Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette rather than being a real nod towards historical fashions.

Karl Lagerfeld is self-aware enough that I'm sure this show's peasant vs super-rich undertones were entirely intentional. There were a couple of male models in the show and they, along with the female models wearing the trouser-suit outfits, looked like pantomime parodies of pageboys.

The suits with knee-breeches looked almost costumey, like the girls-dressed-as-boys outfits worn in comic plays, and the wide-legged trouser suits were like a modern retelling of Marie Antoinette's fetish for dressing up as a faux peasant and working on her own private "farm". They were made from traditional Chanel suit fabrics in frothy cupcake shades of pink and blue, and the baggy trousers were only peasant-like in that they had artfully unhemmed cuffs. The end result was a series of outfits that were one half neatly-tailored Chanel womenswear, one half Japanese street style Lolita parody.

For me, this show was both more youthful and more interesting than expected. Cruise/resort collections tend to be unimaginative and mostly focussed around easy summer staples like bikinis and maxi-dresses, but this show was 72 outfits long and covered a wide variety of styles from straight-up 18th century costuming to modern party dresses and hip-hop influenced brothel-creepers. The biggest surprise was the prevalence of faux-gold and purposeful tackiness -- themes that the mature designers at Chanel usual shy away from.

Footage of the full show is available online here, and hi-res mid-walk photos can be found here. 

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