Lagerfeld at H&M: sizzling in Paris, lukewarm in London
By Suzy Menkes International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
LONDONThe reports were coming in from Paris of customers lining up from 6 a.m. and crowds snapping up streetwise couture. Yet only four people were standing in the drizzle outside H&M at Oxford Circus at 9:30, as Karl Lagerfeld's much heralded line of accessible fashion went on sale last week.
.The massification of high fashion has been hailed as the next big thing. Swedish clothing giant Hennes & Mauritz showed billboards and TV spots with the designer, heavy metal finger rings to the fore. In France, where Lagerfeld's name is a household word after two decades at Chanel, the entire shipment of his and hers jeans at €49.90 (about $65), white cotton shirts at €39.90, skinny knits and a sparkling sequined tuxedo (for women), sold out.
.In London, after a flop of an opening, a respectable number of purchases were snapped up, but there was no rush for "Liquid Karl," the fragrance to go with the clothes.
.The first people through H&M's doors included foreign visitors and fashion students, and one couple said it was "pure coincidence," as they knew nothing about the Lagerfeld promotion (which was boldly displayed in a side window).
."I think in France people want a piece of him because of Chanel," said Christine Ramphal, a Swiss fashion student at Central Saint Martins in London. Maria Lee from Denmark said that she had read about the project in a magazine. Cédric Soulie and Charlotte Bateau, on vacation from France, had expected a manic line of shoppers, but said: "We have no Top Shop in France, where the prices are the same" (referring to the store that is a byword for fast fashion in England).
.The H&M store manager, Paul Roberts, said he thought that "the English are a little bit wary of having someone like Karl Lagerfeld working with a High Street name."
.The idea of high design moving down from class to mass is not so new. Last year, the American designer Isaac Mizrahi produced a cheap and cheerful range for Target. This week, Jean Paul Gaultier will unveil a collection for the French mail-order catalogue La Redoute. And in England, Debenhams department store offers lower-priced lines by British designers such as Jasper Conran, Ben de Lisi and Philip Treacy.
.Yet the Lagerfeld collaboration had seemed to mark a watershed when the differences between the top and lower levels of fashion were to be ironed as flat as the crisp white cotton H&M shirts. As the designer himself put it: "My concept of ready-to-wear today at whatever level is that it has to be as good as the most expensive brand. Design is very important and design is not a question of price any more."
.The collaboration has been a publicity coup, with Lagerfeld in a frenzy of interviews that promote H&M. But both sides admit that this is a project with no planned future: a deliberate one-season wonder. Don't expect mass market Chanel any time soon.
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.Jessica Michault reported from Paris:
.The line was already around the block at 9:15 on Friday morning outside the H&M on the rue de Rivoli in Paris. Women of all ages stood in the bitter cold, determined to be the first to get their hands on the Karl Lagerfeld creations designed exclusively for the store.
."It's a secret," said a woman of a certain age standing at the front of the line when asked what time she had arrived. She later admitted that she showed up at the store at 6 a.m. to grab a coveted spot by the front door.
.A group of ingenious fashionistas had a more tactical approach to getting to the front of the line. They spread out to different H&M stores around the city and called each other on their cellphones to discuss which store had the shortest line. One of them, stationed at the rue de Rivoli store, scurried off to another H&M, where she hoped to have a better chance of getting her hands on the clothes.
.This turned out to be a smart move. Like a swarm of locusts, the crowd at rue de Rivoli descended on the Karl Lagerfeld section of the store. Women snatched up the clothes with little regard to size or style. By 10:15 the section was cleaned out. Some women who arrived at the store too late hovered around the dressing rooms in hopes of picking up items left behind by shoppers. One woman stood in the checkout line, holding a modern silver Lagerfeld ring and looking dejected. "I had to buy something after all that effort," she said.
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gaultier for la redoute....