karl makes everything right

Chanel Haute Couture Highlights: Baptiste As the Tin Man, Shorts, and No Little Black Dresses

Karl Lagerfeld’s spring 2010 couture collection for Chanel walked in Paris today. It included not a single little black dress, the iconic piece created by Coco Chanel almost a century ago. Rather, the Kaiser showed shorts. And silver. Lots and lots of silver.

The show opened with suits with tulle-trimmed shorts instead of skirts. Frankly, the cut reminds us of mom khakis, but with more of an A-line shape. But hell, they are couture, and therefore fabulous, and after the spring collections, we will stand firmly behind any short these days that doesn’t expose ass cheek or require a wax prior to wearing. So, mom khakis: Get onboard!

Photo: Imaxtree


Not only were little black dresses missing from the collection, but Hilary Alexander also notes in the Telegraph:

The candy-coloured and “twinkle” tweeds had lost their classic braid trimmings and were sprinkled and edged with molten silver, to match the silver leather half-gloves — in the style of M. Lagerfeld — and the silver shoe-boots with carved heels and pearl trimmed soles.


Thank goodness he didn’t send any couture clogs down the runway. But how to explain the absence of so many things that are the essence, the foundation of Chanel? Maybe Karl prefers, unlike Galliano, to look to the future. And maybe, in the future he envisions in his head, he sees silver spaceships that carry tall skinny martians in neon shorts that billow like sails, captained by an all-powerful ruler — Karl Lagerfeld with a gorgeous first mate, Baptiste Giabiconi.

After all, one model walked the runway in a big black necktie with a crystal brooch at the end, as Mr. Lagerfeld is fond of doing with his black neckties. Also, the models wore silver fingerless gloves, which Karl wears when he’s not wearing black fingerless gloves. And of course, Karl’s favorite model ever, Baptiste Giabiconi, made an appearance, walking the runway in a Chanel couture Tin Man suit to escort the final look, the customary wedding dress.

Notables on the front row included Alexa Chung in Chanel, Claudia Schiffer hiding her nascent baby bump in an oversize yellow sweater, and Tavi Gevinson in a Hussein Chalayan dress under a Salvation Army sweater. But if anyone wore the “wrong” thing, it was probably Amber Rose, who turned up on the arm of her man Kanye in a skintight (but that’s a given) gold lamé hooded sweaterdress. That’s our Amber — a golden thimble in a sea of silver. Always the accidental standout.

Paris Haute Couture: Chanel spring/summer 2010 collection [Telegraph UK]
See a slideshow of Chanel’s complete spring 2010 couture collection.

Chanel Haute Couture Highlights: Baptiste As the Tin Man, Shorts, and No Little Black Dresses