Welcome to Terminal 2C of the CHANEL airport. Boarding will commence at gate n°5. For CHANEL’s Spring-Summer 2016 Ready-to-Wear collection, Karl Lagerfeld transforms the Grand Palais into an airport. In front of check-in counters and beneath departure boards, hostesses and passengers head outward bound on CHANEL Airlines. They wear a double catogan* and wedge sandals with luminous soles or open booties in silver leather and transparent plastic. In their hands they carry either the new trolley, the “Coco Case”, as Karl Lagerfeld calls it, the “absolute” bag with its pure line, or an XXL version of the 11.12.
Blue in shades from sky through to midnight, white, red, and carlingue grey, pink and black, as well as floral and multi-colour prints all take turns to adorn the tweed, denim, leather, lace, guipure, tulle, silk and ottoman. The silhouettes are based on strict, straight lines or fuller shapes with an ethereal fluidity.
The iconic CHANEL suit becomes “the absolute suit”. It has no collar, no pockets, no braiding and no buttons, and yet remains instantly recognizable. Double-breasted, jackets and short jackets in cotton tweed with chevrons or graphic patterns fasten with large silver buttons, half-hidden, and are hemmed with a “new braid”, a braid that’s photographed, then printed, and covered with silicon. The skirts are long, flared or with full sunray pleats and are worn with or without trousers. A suppleness that Karl Lagerfeld also develops on little wide jackets coupled with tweed sailor trousers.
Karl Lagerfeld humorously plays with the codes of the sky on blouses, trousers and pleated skirts printed with departure boards, arrow signage, tri-colour motifs, “fly-away skirts” says the designer amusingly. Lifted by large skirts and wide trousers, vests and voluminous carlingue-effect silver-embroidered jackets are sewn with bows and grosgrain ribbons. Floral prints brighten silk band dresses worn with wide block-colour trousers while blouses are associated with ottoman jackets.
For this Spring-Summer 2016 Ready-to-Wear collection, Karl Lagerfeld offers us his idea of travelling attire: an ultra-feminine look that combines comfort and elegance with chic, functional accessories, ideal for globetrotting. “We travel more and more. So why shouldn’t there be Chanel luggage?” the designer concludes.
Passengers in this first class, the CHANEL ambassadresses Vanessa Paradis and Lily-Rose Depp, the British actresses Cara Delevingne and Kaya Scodelario, the American singers Yasiin Bey aka Mos Def, Janelle Monae and St Vincent, the Australian singers Say Loulou, and the French actresses Marine Vacth and Clotilde Hesme all came to the Spring-Summer 2016 Ready-to-Wear show.
