Bravo, Karl!

The Chanel show was always going to be one of the highlights of Paris Fashion Week This year once again the outfits on show could have been the big story. I find it impossible not to smile happily when I see the coat on the left with it's graphic lining. Hell, if it were made for men I wouldn't hesitate to wear it myself.

However the garments presented in Paris were only part of the sensation which Karl Lagerfeld delivered to the gasping fashionistas.

I cite Garance Doré...
"I am in a huge Chanel supermarket. As huge as the Grand Palais. It’s beautiful! Each product has been thought out (there are more than 500, I’ve heard) each has sublime packaging. Each product has a funny caption or a hilarious pun.We all look like kids on Christmas morning, eyes wide open and pink cheeks.

"If this Chanel show was genius, it’s not only for everything I just narrated to you [...] but it’s also because, if right now, fashion shows are a communication event then this one must have exploded any standard. The number of tweets and Instagrams went literally crazy."

My feeling when I found out about the Chanel show I was that the great and good of the fashion business who were lucky enough to attend reacted with the stunned and almost child-like delight of people who find themselves unexpectedly spectators in the midst of a 'flash mob' event. This was a 'happening', an immersive interactive situationist performance artwork. I wonder if the fashion business will ever be the same. 

On a personal note, I was also reminded of a challenge I faced in the nineties. The soap opera for which I was responsible had a story line involving one of the characters buying huge quantities of expensive audio equipment. But a pile of cartons emblazoned with the Sony logo was not an option... we would have been accused of overt 'product placement'. And so there had to be a fictitious marque. It was my opportunity to have a bit of fun, albeit on a scale more modest than in Paris. Finally the boxes appeared to contain amplifiers, turntables and loudspeakers manufactured by a firm called Anakusis (defined as the "absence of the ability to perceive sound". Ah, what jollity!