A Retrospective: Chanel under Karl Lagerfeld (1983- 2019)

[YohjiAddict]

^Very interesting read. Not the most flattering picture of Karl but it's more entertaining thanks to the writer's bluntness.

It's actually quite the think piece on nouveau riche, frenchness, the extent of a designer's influence and quite a lot more. Nowadays most articles wouldn't venture that far.

 

[MagFan]

Fashion Channel uploaded swimming pool couture finally

 

[Lola701]

Fashion Channel uploaded swimming pool couture finally

A fabulous collection! First time in more than 20 years since I have seen the whole collection!
The balance between Karl’s hard edge silhouettes and the lightness of the fabrics is unmatched.
It’s a very difficult to classify collection. It’s a bit like the RTW SS2000 in Karl’s repertoire…
It’s a kind of deconstructed retrofuturism where the strong shoulders and the pop of neon colors can evoke the 80’s, the drop waist can evoke the 20’s, the accentuated waist the 50’s, the plastic and patent leather boots are 60’s meets 80’s and the whole lightness can evoke the 70’s. But at the same time, it’s very 2000.

There’s in this collection and even in the SS2000 Couture a desire to define a new look for the new millennium, more colorful, more pop than the very serious, minimal and maybe more experimental late 90’s collections!

It’s insane, Anja Rubik has been in the business for that long!

 

[Cocteau Stone]

First time really seeing any of this besides Devon's bride look and maybe some of the make-up. What an insanely off-kilter looking collection that somehow works. It is very of its time because of the styling tricks, but when you pull away the clothes from it there's some amazing pieces and silhouettes. Love the savageness of the chiffon and tulle treatments to balance the hardness of the suiting and jackets. Some questionable prints, but that is bit of a mainstay at Chanel and for Karl most of the time.

Not sure why it had to be at the Piscine Keller, but again it works. I used to be rather dismissive and disinterested in Karl's work and Chanel, but seeing this and looking back at the collections from around this time I've started to bite my tongue.

 

[Alquimista]

It upsets me that young people have an idea of Chanel as something conservative and boring when Coco was groundbreaking in her era, same thing with Lagerfeld. Opening the archives would do wonders to change that perception IMO. Young people and students would see that while Chanel style was resolutely bourgeois , the substance was revolutionary!

About Karl's era: there are pics from the 80s collections around the web, but I never saw a complete collection.

 

[blueorchid]

There are lots (well, relatively) of photos of Karl's 1980s collections on Getty Images now that WWD's archives are on there. Both runway photos and collection preview photos.

 

[Maayan]

Thought I'd share.
Chanel Haute Couture SS 1983:

My archives

 

[Maayan]

Chanel FW 1983:

My archives

 

[Maayan]

I have also uploaded Chanel Haute Couture FW 2000 here in case anyone wants the images ))

Chanel Haute Couture F/W 2000 Paris

My archives

forums.thefashionspot.com

 

[Alquimista]

Very interesting insta page

 

[blueorchid]

Harper's Bazaar November 1985
"The Chanel Spirit"
Photographer: Dick Ballarian
Model: Inès de La Fressange


HB Archive

 

[tricotineacetat]

Astonishing to see how some looks from Karl's debut collection at Chanel still have that timeless modernism about them - Just a quick swap of edgy footwear (Pierre Hardy, Saint Laurent from the Hedi era) and most of these looks would feel very now again.

I think such is the beauty of classic Chanel that the clothes can and should transcend the course of fashion and retain their actuality as icons. But to get there requires the hand of a designer with a great eye for cut and rigor in design to keep the clothes fuss-free and seemingly simple, always with ease of wearing in mind.

Had Karl not become the designer at Chanel back in those days or enjoyed such a long career at the house, I think Jil Sander in her 1990ies heydays would have been an amazing successor and indeed the spiritual inheritor of Gabrielle Chanel's legacy.