Marc Jacobs for Chanel???

[Deleted member 7575]

I think Hedi is more than capable to design womenswear...for Chanel even. To be honest it doesn't take a whole lot of talent to do it (in context of other established designers not in general). Lagerfeld just does the same thing most of the time finding different variations on looks sourced from the archives. It's always very safe but just interesting enough for people to take interest. IMO Chanel has gotten very stale under Karl. I think Slimane would be quite good for Chanel. He has a very good grasp on french luxury, has already experimented with gender roles and androgeny (something that made Chanel originally so infamous), and seems to also have a good sense of marketing. I don't think the house needs someone who will just rework old dresses (like Galliano) but instead can clearly extract the orginal values and aims and apply it for today. A bit more along the lines of Nicholas Ghesquire for Balenciaga and perhaps (to early to tell) Ricardo Tisci for Givenchy. I think Hedi would be excellent at this. There is the concern of Slimane not having SHOWN womenswear but from interviews and other sources he seems to have it on his mind. Raf Simons was hired to do womenswear for Jil Sander without having shown any before. Of course I think he would have to prove he can do it but that is between him and the execs at Chanel. My concern about Hedi is that his aesthetic is so different than what we have come to expect from Chanel. I am willing to go on a limb and say he will be good at womenswear but will he be good for Chanel? I say yes but that is purely on my own assumption.


As for Marc he seems to have found his niche at LV, why ruin a good thing?

 

[fashionista-ta]

I adored that article but I think Marc for Chanel will never ever ever happen. I love the guy but I don't think he would be cabable of capturing Coco's essence the way that Karl can. And I think Karl will hold the job for a while longer.

I think you're taking the quote too seriously out of context. I just took it to mean that he respects the position and what Karl has done with it.

I suspect what he said was in answer to a question along the lines of, Is there anywhere else for Marc Jacobs to go? Have you reached the pinnacle at 42?

There are several designers in their 70s working today ... assuming the past partying doesn't catch up with him, he may have another good 30+ years ...

I don't feel Karl does capture Coco's essence. Really as I think about it, he's mostly doing post-modern riffing on Coco's themes ... maybe Marc is the right guy for the job, if that's how it should be done Personally I think it's not--I'd like to see a renaissance a la YSL. I would guess Coco rolls in her grave each time the latest CC tchotkes are released ... some of it really is downright tacky. (I'm thinking of a pair of huge white quilted ski-type boots with gold CC ...)

Karl is a great post-modern brand manager for Chanel ... Coco was a revolutionary whose influence continues to permeate our culture. Just for one example, think about the proliferation of tanning salons and self-tanners ... the fashionable tan started with her. Hugely influential in terms of breaking down traditional class "trademarks." And all that's before we ever even get to specifics of the clothes, perfume worn by generations of women, bags, costume jewelry, etc.

 

[Scott]

Well,if not Branquinho,I also like the idea of Anne-Valerie Hash doing it. Possibly even Bruno Pieters with all his couture experience with Lacroix and at his own those first two seasons.

But yeah,you're right. At the moment,it all seems irrelevent to speculate. But I just don't like the idea of Jacobs doing it. You speak about couture and the skill level,I also don't think Marc would be any the more capable of such mastery.

 

[droogist]

^ I think you're right about that; MJ's had more experience at the very tippy-top of the luxury good market, but couture would probably still trip him up. He doesn't really know his way around an evening gown, does he.

 

[softgrey]

agreed..all his evening wear makes me

 

[nqth]

Reading all the post made me think that Karl makes an excelent job at Chanel:-)) doing all the pap "tricts" to sell the coll. but manages the couture craftmanship at the highest level.

 

[dhclam]

oh, i can't(/dun wanna) see Chanel as music driven/inspired as what happened at Dior Homme rite now.... did anyone see Mick Jagger wearing that DH s/s 06 silver jkt (short @ the back and long @ the front) on stage? well, appalling !!!

 

[helena]

for me i think the way Chanel herself worked was primarily from the standpoint of being a woman herself. She started making clothes which she herself wanted to wear....and she broke down the barriers of the sartorial and social norms of the time because she, as a woman didn't believe in them. She was a radical in her day (even though when she grew older her designs, at least, became that norm). We live in different times now and we no longer have the same constraints that she had to break [women] free from. However we are still bound by very strict 'rules' of beauty and what women should look like. The only designers that really challenge todays 'model' aesthetic are the japanese and selected other designers (like Bernard Willhelm and Ann Sophie Back). They are the ones who have the power to shock.....that is, if what one wants to recreate is what Chanel did 'philosophically' in the early 20th C....however, if one simply wants to carry the tried & tested Chanel 'look' forward then there are lots who I am sure have the skill for it including those mentioned above.

Personally I think fashion has to move forward and we need radicals to do that, so unless the House is left to fade away with grace I would favour somone more radical at the helm and Mr jacobs is by no means the man (even if he does make bloody nice shoes).

Anne Valerie Hache may actually be a winner...she can be radical (but not alarmingly so like the others I mentioned)but she has exposure to couture.

 

[Amo_Armani]

I personally think Jil Sander would be an extremely interesting choice for Chanel, though it will never happen.

 

[fashionista-ta]

I like what you say here, Helena, and I would also like to see the "rules" of beauty challenged.

Now that you say this, it makes me think perhaps it is some common ground between Coco and Marc, who I think really does challenge these traditional rules, both with his clothes & in his advertising. It's subtle and ironic and not everyone gets it, but he's doing it

So many (perhaps esp male) designers impose their will/ideas on women via their clothes. Take YSL, for example ... the new silhouette to me is very rigid--that wide tight belt, those high heels, I don't know how you could relax and get comfortable in that silhouette, and hardly any of it can I imagine myself wearing

Whereas Marc, he really spells it out in this interview, he actually *appreciates* the imperfection of real women, the beauty of that is what his own label is all about. To me Marc's message is, you can be yourself, and you should be yourself, and here are some clothes you can do it in. And perhaps here and now (with all the surgical tweaking and injecting and whitening and toning and tanning people to within an inch of their lives) that is a radical message

 

[Deleted member 7575]

I personally think Jil Sander would be an extremely interesting choice for Chanel, though it will never happen.

Whoa, that is actually really true! whoa....

 

[Scott]

Okay,taking a cue from Helena's excellent post...

Do you all think that perhaps the lady herself would rather see that radical spirit or somebody who can just keep the house going? Personally,I think she would rather see somebody embrace the same approach and spirit as she did;the person who's capable a making people re-evaluate their perceptions.

 

[Lena]

,I think she would rather see somebody embrace the same approach and spirit as she did;the person who's capable a making people re-evaluate their perceptions.

agreed scott

(i still find Lagerfeld very mediocre for Chanel, imb he has ruinned what the House of Chanel was standing for )

 

[Scott]

Didn't he say at one point(last year,I think he was quoted)that he didn't care for the legacy of Chanel? That it wasn't important....that she was no longer relevant to the modern Chanel? Something along those lines,I recall.

 

[helena]

sorry but i just think KL is a d*ck.

 

[Lena]

sorry but i just think KL is a d*ck.

makes two of us Helena
i also think he's a dUck

 

[nqth]

sorry but i just think KL is a d*ck.

:-DD

I don't think Chanel will be able to shock anymore. Too much money to risk:-P

Or maybe they will find sb, like Dior found Galliano, haha.

 

[Scott]

That makes three of us,Helena.

And that's a really good point,nqth....what Karl has done really is that he's turned into a major profit.

 

[helena]

:-DD

I don't think Chanel will be able to shock anymore. Too much money to risk:-P

Or maybe they will find sb, like Dior found Galliano, haha.

thats exactly right nqth. its a big global luxe brand.....too much to lose.

btw what is :-DD?

 

[nqth]

btw what is :-DD?

It's :-D "intense" (double D for maximum impact:-P)