Lagerfeld Forgets Plot

Hemlines rise and fall, colors fade in and out of fashion, but the challenge for the major Paris fashion houses remains the same each season. The goal for designers at the helm of Chanel, Dior, Givenchy, Balenciaga et al is to maintain the perfect balance of old and new - to chuck out the chintz, while keeping the family silver shining brightly.

Karl Lagerfeld has proved himself a grand master. In the 23 years he has been designing Chanel he has created a very chic fashion soap opera, with the iconic pieces which Coco created in the 1950s - the tweed suit, the chain-strap handbag - starring as the central characters around which the plot twists. But the latest installment, a catwalk show staged at the Grand Palais on the bank of the Seine yesterday, suggested that this season Lagerfeld’s ego had got the better of his judgment. This was too much in the image of Lagerfeld himself, and not enough in the image of Coco Chanel.

A typical outfit comprised a black leather miniskirt worn with tight thigh boots, a frilled blouse, and a longer coat: a very slightly more effeminate version of Lagerfeld’s own signature outfit of tight black trousers tucked into leather boots, frilled blouse and jacket. The dandyish touches so beloved of Lagerfeld were dotted through the collection.

So silk cravats at the throat were fashioned into the house’s signature motif, the camellia; key chains of the type Lagerfeld likes to wear on his tight jeans were reworked in strings of pearls; and frilled cuffs burst from the wrists of jackets. Nonetheless, Lagerfeld’s fashion antennae may well be accurate in guiding him towards a dark, androgynous aesthetic. The predominance of black and white, and the abundance of darkly romantic frills, are in keeping with the gothic mood which has also been in evidence on the catwalks of Christian Dior and Givenchy this week.