Chanel

CHANEL 

 FALL – WINTER 2015/16 READY-TO-WEAR 

It is at the Grand Palais, for this occasion transformed into a Parisian brasserie, that Karl Lagerfeld presented CHANEL’s Fall-Winter 2015/16 Ready-to-Wear collection. This season the “Brasserie Gabrielle” welcomes the “French Collection”, a collection the creator wanted to be “very French” and one that revisits the icon styles of CHANEL. 

So it’s the customers, the “new bourgeoises” as Karl Lagerfeld calls them, sometimes feminine, sometimes androgynous that seat themselves at the tables in this brasserie. All wearing the famous beige sling-back shoe with a black toe, squared heel and revisited proportions: “It’s become the most modern of shoes and makes beautiful legs,” Karl Lagerfeld confided. 

Such colours as navy, grey and burgundy in shades of red-black adorn the tartan or hound’s tooth patterns. The CHANEL favourite tweed, along with wool and mohair are combined with silk, vinyl, mousseline and lace. 

Very feminine, the “new bourgeoises” are presented in zipped or preciously buttoned up coat dresses trimmed with woven braid. Others wear jackets “à berthe” or with large collars and fluid tweed or wool skirts. Very smart, the silhouette is fitted with the waist underlined by a narrow belt, a flared line, and cut just below the knee or at calf-length. Large wool coats, full sleeveless cardigans and jackets give it all warmth and bring a modern feel: “CHANEL dresses women for life,” Karl Lagerfeld reminds us. 

Yet more androgynous, other silhouettes pass by in short box coats that reveal white shirts and immaculate plastrons. Draped in grosgrain belted tweed aprons they wear jeans, slim-cut leather pants or tweed dresses in the style of a neo three piece suit. 
For evening, the little black dress is reinterpreted as a swing dress, a trompe-l’oeil two-piece, or as an apron adorned with details inspired by the attire of the “garçons de café”, such as bow ties or folded brasserie napkins. Lace skirts and dresses, close-cut wool embroidered jackets contrast with full dresses painted with feathers and covered over with large woollen cardigans that reveal maxi sleeves also with feathers. 

The singers Florence Welch, Lou Doillon, Li Yu Chun (Chris Lee), Cécile Cassel and Soko, the actresses Alma Jodorowsky, Yao Chen, Alessandra Mastronardi, Loan Chabanol and Marie-Ange Casta, along with the composer and music producer Cerrone all came to applaud this “French Collection” that reinvents the French “new bourgeoisie” with an absolutely modern spirit.