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Chanel: Courtly Rockers Rule

October 04 06:05:02 AM, Yahoo News

Fashion Wire Daily - We discovered the ideal cure for the current financial blues; attending Chanel's rock-n-roll aristocrat runway show, Friday, Oct. 3, in Paris.

Crisis, what crisis? One felt like asking as the posh groupie damsels sauntered down the giant, fake tar macadam catwalk, before a massive backdrop that was an exact copy, right up to the lead mansard roof stains, of Chanel's 31 rue Cambon headquarters.

Packed with fashion's most expensive casting, the show was an upbeat, optimistic tour de force, where many models carried shopping bags, in a fiscal quarter when few consumers are doing just that.

"Post recession romanticism," was Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld's lapidary comment on the collection, whose wittiest moment was four models in blow up style Carnaby Street knit dresses that looked like they were off to shoot the debut release album cover of a hot girls band.

Though targeted at the rich, Karl can inject a populist touch into any Chanel collection, like his neat series of hefty leather totes, marked with the company's iconic address. They will be sure fired best sellers and, underlining this brand's unique status, probably the victim of intense copying.

Besides many Asian billionaire's wives, the Chanel front row also included Claudia Schiffer, Jemima Goldsmith, Japanese soccer star Hidetoshi Nakata and actress Joanna Preiss.

Other groupie references on the runway included one model carrying a guitar case, made in a cream version of the padded leather for which Chanel is famous. Also impressive were a new two tone hosiery that all Chanel fans are sure to order.

In between the rock goddesses were couture quality jackets and redingotes in the house's boucle wool, some bestrewn with feathers, others with glitter. And in a geometrical season, one had to admire the great broken grid pattern dresses.

Karl even had a "mini me" moment, sending out five gallants in black tails and his Germanic high white collar shirts, bedecked with chains and necklaces.

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