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Chanel across the Channel PDF Print E-mail
Chanel across the Channel


IT was a rainy night in London and the Christmas lights were shimmering in Sloane Square through the fogged-up windows of my cab before I arrived at a whitewashed warehouse to enter Chanel's parallel universe.

Here, in this pristine world, handsome men greeted me with big, black umbrellas emblazoned with white interlocking CC logos.

A bevy of beautiful black-clad girls handed out handwritten seating tickets to actors Emma Thompson and Rupert Everett, singers Lily Allen and Natalie Imbruglia, models Claudia Schiffer and Yasmin Le Bon, and the beautiful woman favoured by US Vogue, Natalia Vodianova, and her English aristocrat husband, Justin Portman.

The rollcall went on; hand-picked attendees included US Vogue's editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley, society girls Daphne and Jasmine Guinness, Charlotte Casiraghi (Princess Caroline of Monaco's daughter) and milliners Stephen Jones and Philip Treacy.

It was Karl Lagerfeld's Paris-London 2007-08 collection show that lured the world's fashion press to London last week.

The designer's vision was a melange of French chic and le style Anglaise, much loved for its quirkiness and eccentricity by Lagerfeld's predecessor Coco Chanel.

It's a style Coco learned from her English lovers, Boy Capel and the Duke ofWestminster.

So, just as in Coco's days, there we all were, French and English intermingling, heady with cocktails and being ushered into a vast space arranged in table settings like some Cote d'Azur drinks party. Our chairs, rather than elaborate salon numbers, were backed with English gentlemen's jacket hangers topped with gilded CCs.

Expectations were high, for this was the first of Chanel's unique Metiers d'Art collections to be held on English soil.

The series celebrates the breathtaking craftsmanship of Chanel's specialist ateliers, acquired by the house in 2002.

They include Desrues (costume jewellery), Michel (millinery), Lemarie (feather artisans), Massaro (a bootmaker), Lesage (embroidery) Goossens (silversmithery) and Guillet (floral design).

Special shows recognising their skills have taken place in Paris, Tokyo, New York, Monte Carlo and Sydney.

In a world where mass fashion and mass production are the norm - even in the luxury goods business - few houses such as Chanel and Hermes can make claim to continuing their fine craftsmanship heritage.

With his usual inventive and encyclopedic knowledge, for the London show Lagerfeld played with the high and the low, with popular culture and couture, and with grand historical and contemporary street looks. It began with a rock band fronted by Chanel model and muse Irina Lazareanu, who sang accompanied by musicians including Sean Lennon.

The music was rocky and charming by turns, and Lazareanu looked the part in a long black gown. As for her singing, let's just say maybe she shouldn't give up her day job.

Then out came Chanel's gorgeous girls sporting fabulous tousled beehives and black eyeliner a la Amy Winehouse with pale pouty Brigitte Bardot lips.

The references bounced about in a typically eclectic Lagerfeld way: gorgeous black organza dresses that were a touch Edwardian, puffed, ruffled beribboned and pintucked, with flashes of Tudor doublets and shoulder rolls, silvered shearling jerkins, purple and silver satin coats with full sleeves, tartans, chiffons and distressed English tweeds in a floor-length greatcoat.

Boys and girls walked out in a series of embroidered coats and tunics, encrusted with chunky stones and with punk safety pins and chains thrown into the mix. English model of the moment Agyness Deyn was perfect for the neo-punk mood, striding out with her tough-chick peroxided hair and wearing a jewelled nipped-in overcoat and skinny satin trousers.

Even in the accessories the inventive references abounded: Union Jack quilted handbags, chain-detailed evening reticules, fingerless gauntlets, brooches, ropes of beads, even a pair of light-bulb art deco platforms.

All in all it was a glorious roller-coaster ride that took us from Coco to Karl and from Paris to London and back again.

Afterwards the rooms were abuzz with chatter and flashbulbs as Lagerfeld made his appearance, his big leonine head topped with the signature silver ponytail and his svelte form clad in a skinny black tux, high stiff collar, bow tie with fleur-de-lis brooch and those cut-off gloves with rings around his fingers.

It was time for the fashion kissy-kissy, and so it went: King Karl and celeb kiss, pose, pause, next celeb kiss, pose, pause.

All the while an elderly white-coated waiter stood nearby with a single crystal goblet on a silver salver, filled with a diet soft drink, patiently waiting for Lagerfeld to take a sip.

The fashion pantomime was transfixing.

There was Le Bon, in a skinny double-breasted couture jacket and equally skinny pants, a Heidi plait curving across her head topped with flowers, Chanel diamonds and black pearls in her ears and on her hands.

"I really loved it," she said to me. "Karl really gets it. Funky, totally smart and a little bit edgy, but not too scary."

Heiress Daphne Guinness said: "It was incredible. He really captured something of London."

She was wearing a black coat encrusted on the shoulders and sides with gold studs: "Chanel, of course. I virtually always wear Chanel. Is that a bit sad?"

How do you answer that? Nice work if you can get it, springs to mind.

But it was Thompson who made my night. While everyone else was swanning around in Chanel or super-chic black, she was wearing some sort of Annie Hall get-up. Bless her, clearly no stylist was at work: a big cream blazer, sleeves rolled up '80s-style (did she borrow it from partner Greg Wise?), cream scarf hanging out underneath, baggy white pants rolled up at the ankles and a pair of sneakers.

What, I asked, was she wearing?

"I don't know," she answered with a wide, self-deprecatory grin. What about the sneakers? "Oh, I bought them at Kurt Geiger." The only hint of glamour was the incongruous addition of Chanel diamond earrings and a Chanel cuff.
 
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