Chanel Couture – Welcome to the New Hedonism
The gods were cruel but the muse kind in a powerfully inventive, though completely rain drenched, haute couture show from Chanel on Tuesday morning in Paris.
Dedicated to that gallantly sentimental painter Jean-Honore Fragonard – an old favorite of Chanel’s designer Karl Lagerfeld – the show was staged on the beautiful Terrace de l’Orangerie de Saint Cloud, an image of which by the artist made up the invitation.
Women bore parasols in Fragonard’s Arcadian vista, but the overriding image of this show were the large Chanel logo umbrellas unfolded over the heterogeneous guests. Mixed would be an understatement – seeing the crowd included everyone from Jasmine Guinness and David Lynch to a small regiment of petites Gallic actresses and Madame Chirac. The presence of the former First Lady did raise as many eyebrows as the absence of her successor Cecilia Sarkozy, a couture no-show so far, despite being from a furrier’s family.
Fortunately, thanks to the striking staging – a series of My Fair Lady style racing pavilions and protective fabric baffles - a determined casting of supermodels who braved the pebble catwalk, a rousing soundtrack and, above all, a thoroughly inventive and, given the inspiration, unexpected collection, the rain did not ruin this moment.
If the mark of a great designer is the ability to see something the rest of us had not remotely noted, then Lagerfeld is a very talented man indeed. His opening flurry of looks were even faintly futurist, tunic like coats and jackets, trim skirts and thigh boots, all topped by taut bonnets. They were miles from any Fragonard oil, and yet, somehow not that much out of the step with Jean-Honore’s sense of racy Rococo.
Oatmeal coatdresses with outlandish feathered sleeves and sides, mesh gloves with jade embroidery, clinging Neo Romantic sequined cocktails and faille A-line dresses with a pulse-raising hemline all captured something of Fragonard’s own contradictions.
Though very much a member of the establishment, Fragonard was a frankly erotic painter, once commissioned by Madame du Barry to create a series called Progress of Love for her new house at Louveciennes. Ironically Madame did not like the results and sent them back, though we can all still appreciate them – they are in New York’s Frick Collection.
Forced to flee to his native Grasse during The Terror, Fragonard lost all his patrons and died in obscurity as post Revolutionary taste turned to virtuous David and his ilk.
But this morning, despite the downpour, Karl made Jean Honore live again, whether in broken marble pattern columns or the fabulous, sunglass wearing, bride who finished this show. These two had plenty of similarities, provincial roots, early recognition and prodigious energy.
Call it a victory for the New Hedonism.
