DATA CENTER CHANEL
In an ultra-technological world where daily life is increasingly dematerialised, Karl Lagerfeld puts humans back at the centre of everything by making “Intimate technology” the theme of his collection. His vision celebrates a woman walking through kilometres of cables, metallic racks and computer cabinets: she is the very heart of the Data Center CHANEL, she who is the final word and the mistress of this digital universe.
This season more than ever, with grace and tenderness, femininity takes control in a collection that allies the audacity of lingerie and the comfort of tweed. The Spring-Summer 2017 CHANEL woman wears her babydoll and negligee in silk and lace. And over that she nonchalantly sports a tweed jacket with rounded shoulders, long sleeves and wide lapels, and a pair of culottes zipped at the front and back. She wears a robot-clutch.
Her modernity is affirmed with new details through “new materials and a wardrobe that is not classic at all”, says Karl Lagerfeld. Touch fasteners replace buttons, braiding becomes a thick jersey cable; woven multi-coloured tweeds include rubber strands and vinyl strips; cotton, denim and wool threads line up like countless electronic cables; collars and cuffs are swathed in embossed translucent gauze.
Explosions of colour are everywhere over backgrounds of blue, red, yellow, pink, purple, black and navy, a mix of pastels and electric shades. This contemporary energy is equally diffused over caps in silk or tweed, sleek clutch bags in perforated silver leather, flat shoes with cross over straps, and the big pendant necklaces that resemble ID badges, held on with a snap hook. As if hastily pulled on, the unlined jackets and big coats in tweed, as light as knitwear, are worn over long skirts and pleated blouses. They alternate with slightly asymmetric jackets, accompanied by zip-up skirts with flat pleats that reveal silk and lace shorts beneath.
The new Gabrielle bag suggests a new way to be worn: its double straps are slipped on around the head like a sweater, and nonchalantly border the neck and shoulders, as would a long necklace. Cotton voile gracefully envelopes coats and immaculate dresses, punctuated with ruffled edge camellias. A full skirt in cotton voile is embellished with an entirely pleated XL camellia.
Technology comes attired in an unprecedented softness, on blouses with ruffled cuffs, and silk dresses whose motifs are inspired by the digital world, or other dresses with huge rounded pockets. It opens the door to an exquisite femininity, where silk, lace and crepe georgette intermingle in the most delicate hues of powder, pale pink, candy pink, blush and peach sashaying through to midnight blue.
From there on underwear becomes over wear: flat pleat or accordion pleated plastrons are tailored onto underslips and negligees while shell guipure lace petticoats and pyjama trousers in silk and lace cry out to be worn as daywear. Blouses combine touch fasteners, sequins that look like electronic components, feathers and flounces. Evening gowns focus on voluminous sunray pleats, trimmed with marabout.
This collection turns the spotlight on chic lingerie whose elegance contrasts fiercely with the reality of our automated world. Without the human hand, without delicacy and savoir-faire, nothing would be possible. After all don’t two robots wearing two CHANEL suits thus prove, perhaps, that more than any technological breakthrough, it is femininity that truly transcends time?
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Tags: CHANEL, CHANEL SS 2017, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2017
Tue, October 25 2016 » Fashion Blog
Mon, October 24 2016 » Fashion Blog
A new beginning demands a certain forgetfulness. In order to rewrite history one should forget about it and retain the essence, moving quickly and irreverently to explore the pleasures of metamorphosis.
Actions should be quick, guided by taste that edits, chooses, combines, unites: elongating, narrowing, keeping time as a value on the surface of things; stripping away of the super uous to add intensity.
Eras should be crossed in an accelerated supercut, drawing an imaginary line that brings Hieronymus Bosch, the visionary inventor of fantastic heavens and hells, close to Zandra Rhodes, who has been invited to reinterpret the artist’s imagery with her pure and innocent lines.
By becoming forgetful, signs of a subversive and individual grace can be found dispersed in history: The Garden of Earthly Delights, the miniatures of the Middle Ages and the colors of the Renaissance, the Musician’s Hell and Paradise Lost.
Values evolve.
Punk: a way of thinking that accepts and accentuates contrasts and imperfections instead of erasing them. The graceful poetry of color, even when it becomes acid and pungent. The quest for the precious, without the preciousness.
The end of the journey coincides with the start. It is women, represented in the plural: as individuals, not characters.
A punk idea of humanism.
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Tags: SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2017, VALENTINO, VALENTINO SS 2017
Thu, October 20 2016 » Fashion Blog
Thu, October 20 2016 » Fashion Blog
Thu, October 20 2016 » Fashion Blog
Fri, October 14 2016 » Fashion Blog
“It is interesting to me that even though we live in a digital age with a free flow of information, there are many countries who want to close their borders. I prefer to focus on openness and looking out into the world,” – Jonny Johansson, Creative Director
Loose, fluid and feminine combinations of prints and patterns, with many garments made from and inspired by flowing scarves and blankets. Two dimensional cutting creates pieces of free volume that come to life when placed on the body. Colours go from pales and greys to primary colours in the deepest indigo, mustard yellow and red.
A fine cashmere jumpsuit is made from a soft oatmeal check matched with a paisley, while a flowing top is created from layers like the edges of scarves. A simple half-belt denim jacket is the result of rich work: stonewashed, overdyed and then embroidered.
Trims of knit frame garments, while oversized jacquard knits are of idiosyncratic pattern, often with unfinished hems. Denim dungarees bring an air of workwear, and also connect to the origins in denim of Acne Studios.
Drop-shoulder knitted sweaters and sleeveless dresses are like North African blankets worn on the body, constructed with artisanal topstitching. Repeated prints are used in different scales and combinations: paisley; indienne; checks; stripes.
Byzantine slippers have a pointed toe, while wood print shoes have a built up curved sole like the arm of a chair. Moccasins are embellished with jewels, and heels come with intensely braided straps. Unstructured bags are in suede or leather laser cut with paisleys. Rounded glasses are of intentionally small frame.
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Tags: ACNE STUDIOS, ACNE STUDIOS SS 2017, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2017
Thu, October 13 2016 » Fashion Blog
Thu, October 13 2016 » Fashion Blog
Wed, October 12 2016 » Fashion Blog
How to define a shoulder without using pads or padding, a sort of natural sharpness that almost happens by chance ?
I widened the shoulderline of a trench and shirt to a point where I could then just refold it onto itself, creating a small angular shoulder and adding volume to the body at the same time. Cut into denim jackets using even more volume in denim or contrasting orange cotton crepe creates the illusion of an even bigger shoulderline while keeping the real shoulder tiny underneath.
Thinking more about paradoxes I was wondering how to treat camouflage in the exact opposite way of what it is supposed to do (make you disappear). The answer was to simply line it with the hottest of hot pinks, thereby rendering it useless for anything else but looking hot.
V necks are cut into military parkas and denim jackets, elongated with either fluid crepe or heavy lace they turn into summer dresses.
A few ideas from past seasons resurface – the spiral skirts from 2004 become spiral dresses, curving around the body, and a cardigan cape from 2012 becomes a tailored jacket, Its constructed front turning into fluid cape in the back.
Finally boots and pumps produced in collaboration with Robert Clergerie are cut in the same fabrics as the pants of the Collection. Elongating the silhouette, they effectively eliminate the ever complicated question of which shoes to wear with which outfit.
Lutz Huelle
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Tags: LUTZ HUELLE, LUTZ HUELLE SS 2017, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2017
Tue, October 11 2016 » Fashion Blog
