Ever the bellwether, Karl Lagerfeld‘s haute couture offerings for Chanel‘s spring 2017 collection shown yesterday (January 24) at Paris’s Grand Palais, are very much in line with a more traditional worldview in which men are men and women are prim and proper arm pieces meant only to enhance their partners.
Hair was pulled back in tight chignons and fashion flair was limited to feather pouf trims and crystal embellished fabrics on some of the evening looks. The collection was themed along demurely-colored knee-or gown-length skirts and dresses, most of which were cinched with a big belt to emphasize a traditional feminine figure and worn with mid-heel pumps.
Even the backstage images were shot in black and white, a creative choice that further conveyed a time from days gone by, hearkening back perhaps to the era of Jackie Kennedy during her days as the model First Lady/long-suffering wife.
For the final wedding dress look, Lagerfeld tapped neither Kendall Jenner nor Bella Hadid, who both walked the show, but the mere seventeen-year-old Lily Rose Depp. And while the pink color of the dress bucked the tradition of virginal white, the dress was sugar sweet and looked not unlike the birthday ball gown cakes once popular among young girls.
Absolutely, the collection is full of garments one could see Melania Trump wearing with many of them variations on the theme of the powder blue Ralph Lauren suit she wore on the day of the inauguration.
As always it was all very beautiful, but at the same time rather sad and tragic.
