Paris' Grand Palais staged yet another show spectacular this season as Karl Lagerfeld welcomed his fashionably-clad guests to fly with Air Chanel.
By Christopher Prince
It's a rare opportunity when fashion gets to riff on the wardrobe of a first class globetrotter. Creative director Karl Lagerfeld traded in sweatpants for sequins this season to translate - or moreso transport - his Chanel muse back to an era when people used to travel in style. Lagerfeld is no stranger to kitsch, which probably explains why the Grand Palais, the gargantuan exhibition hall that hosts Chanel each season, was transformed into an airport terminal, complete with a private check-in desk for flight No. 5.
Chanel's airport arrivals were painfully reflective of the editors now on day 26 of fashion month. In order to reprive the fatigue Lagerfeld blasted them with high fashion iterations of classic travel attire, namely clothes that were designed with ease of movement in mind. This translated to feather-light separates, soft tweed and roomy tailoring complete with quilted Coco cases and mirrored aviators - to block out the flash of airport paparazzi of course.
At this point a Chanel show is less about fashion and more about the spectacle. Those airline ticket stubs that gained entry to the show became something akin to a golden ticket into Lagerfeld's world of wonders. Let's hope the plane gets in on time.
