CHANEL SPRING SUMMER 2015

 

Hello my little cats!!! 

After a crazy day running around Paris in heels that were way too high, a perfume bottle bag and a home-made coat, I went from show to show, lunch, RPM gym class to be more exact ( I'll explain later...), and sticking posters in the Parisian streets to promote the launch of our office roommates, RADIOOOOO.com is online, long live them! Just so you can imagine, I spent 20 minutes of the show bending over on my thighs, not to say standing up, taking photos, all the while trying not to get thrown out by one of the security guards, yes because when you have a seat, you can't stand on your chair ( I curse my meter 63 ). Then there was the RPM class, which stands for "Rapport Poids Moteur": being in an overheated gym filled with vintage exercise bikes, all set to Techno music, for 45 minutes... Do I really need to say that it was the longest moment of my entire life? Yesterday, then, I spent a difficult, long and painful time thinking about how to avoid routes with stairs, and convincing my thigh muscles not to commit suicide. So I wasn't at 200% of my best to give you this report...

 

 

Back to the Chanel show... Crazy as hell! After receiving the invitation, I wondered what he'd come up with... "Le Boulevard Chanel". Well, the brand's teams have built a real street under the nave of the Grand Palais, with 25-meter Haussamian buildings. You'd think you were inside a Paris souvenir snow globe. Even a pedestrian walkway...

 

 

And after going to the supermarket last season, it's obvious that it had to happen in the street... And then, as usual, I'm like a kid, watching everything that's going on in the room, keeping an eye out for people, spotting my fashion gurus, my journalist friends, doing my little mouse and enjoying the contagious effervescence of the event. 

 

 

And then, as soon as it starts to get organized, there are swarms of photographers on the prowl for the couple's picture, or the season's "front row" buddy. It's crazy to watch, and for about 1 or 2 minutes, the protagonists of these photos give their all, their best profiles, their brightest possible smiles. And then the pack of photographers heads off to pick out other superstars a little further on...

 

 

This was my groupie moment, as I was seated opposite a line-up of France's journalistic finest... From Mademioselle Agnès to Sophie Fontanelle to Alexandra Golovanoff, there's my favorite, the acerbic tweet and Lynx's camera, Loïc Prigent whose documentaries I await like fashion messiahs. If you haven't yet subscribed to his Twitter account now's the time to sign up. He tweets the most mind-boggling phrases he hears at fashion weeks, and other nuggets from his daily life.

 

 

The show begins with Cara Delevingne opening the show with an army of models, and then they come out in packs, chatting like girlfriends going shopping, in twos, threes, sometimes in gangs, the Chanel silhouettes are multiple. It begins with an explosion of color, dominated by a "watercolor" motif, but each look is surrounded by colored tweed, sometimes jacket, sometimes lining these watercolors in motion.

 

 

Then came a second wave of models, all dressed in black and white, with touches of gold. I loved the show's footwear: gold leather sandals, openwork boots, and the highly desirable loose-fitting striped knit boots! Among the star models I adore were Lindsey Wixson, the sublime Saskia de Brauw, Charlotte Free, it-girl Caroline de Maigret and super-top Gisele Bundchen.

 

 

And as there's also testosterone on the street, Baptiste, the national Baptist, was on hand to whistle at the girls. Once all the passes had been made. I could feel a sort of rumbling, something was about to happen... And then for the finale, there was a horde of women, coming out from the backstage with banners, posters, A demonstration! That's what was missing from this crazy Show collection! 

 

 

I confess that I saw quite a few things go by after this show, as if this demonstration concept was copied from a "les prairies de paris" presentation that had taken place a few years earlier, which for the time being had really taken place in the real street. But I think that above all Chanel is an international brand with a very high and great sense of humor, winking ironically at its French nationality and our reputation for more than regular strikes and demonstrations. However, I would have liked to see more committed messages for a brand as free as Chanel. Karl Lagerfeld is a designer capable of imagining an insane handbag in the shape of a golden gas can during a fashion show in Dubai, or parading two brides during the finale of a past show to assert his position for the current marriage for all. I'd have liked to see slogans with a little more impact.  

 

 

And then, like me, look at all those journalists wondering where Karl is, in that crowd of enraged models, we're whispering but was he there? "I didn't see him", but I didn't see him either. I'm downright worried. Why wasn't he there? Will he come by bike at the end? Or in a convertible cab? I'm feverish... I leave the Grand Palais a little stunned by everything I've just seen and head for the metro, where I meet the sweet Karl Lagerfeld brand press attaché. I tell her how worried I am...

 

 

And then she tells me he was there! In the crowd with the protesting models. I don't believe it. Standing on my 12cm heels, I lean against the glass of the metro carriage and rummage through my images of the finale in my camera... And there he is... Phew. Karl was there, looking better than ever! Even Anna Wintour was laughing her head off back there. The world of fashion can go on spinning!