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The Preatures’ frontwoman Isabella Manfredi wears a look from CHANEL’s Paris Cosmopolite 2016/17 Métiers d’art Ready-to-Wear collection during a performance in Melbourne
Credit: Shot on iPhone
Where there’s a will, you can rest assured there’s a way that Karl Lagerfeld will turn even the most perfunctory of objects into a perfectly desirable (if not entirely practical) statement bag.
For the Paris Cosmopolite 2016/17 Métiers d’art ready-to-wear collection, the most innocuous and quotidian thing you could think of, a life-size ‘do not disturb’ sign lifted from the back of a hotel door, was rendered in gold metallic sequins and tassels. As one guest observed, you could fit within it your phone and lipstick, but not much else – the suggestion perhaps being, ‘What else does a modern girl need, anyway?’
Camp, sure, but what flirts with gimmicky is made exquisite in the context of a collection that was plundered from the depths of Lagerfeld’s exhaustive imagination. In this instance, the designer was inspired by the Ritz Hotel in Paris, where Coco Chanel famously lived from 1937 onward and died in 1971 – just a stones throw from her spiritual home on Rue Cambon.
At left, Sarah Ellen carries a Ritz Hotel themed clutch from the Paris Cosmopolite Métiers d’art collection; and right, a look from the same collection seen at the ephemeral Chanel boutique at Marais, Melbourne
Credit: Courtesy of Chanel/Shot on iPhone
The bag was a relatively discrete scene stealer, especially when carried by sequin-clad GRAZIA cover star Sarah Ellen, at the opening of Chanel’s first concept-driven retail experience outside of their Australian boutiques: an ephemeral pop-up that has taken over the top floor of Melbourne’s Marais boutique, made over in plush blue and green fleur de lis foliage wallpaper and carpet that was inspired by the tapestries found in the recently revamped hotel on Place Vendôme.
Navy velvet sofas and indigo cabinetry framed with polished brass finishes proved to be an opulent backdrop to a generously gilded collection, one that took its cues from haute cosmopolitan Café Society – the contemporary ciphers of which were seen wasting little time snatching up reworked Gabrielle bags in pink tweed, or 2.55’s adorned with kitsch souvenir charms from the Ritz.
Ornate embellishments of the kind that the collection celebrates (the Pre-Fall show is staged each year as a kind of tribute to the petite mains, artisans and craftspeople whose finesse is unique to the rarefied art of haute couture and the Métiers d’art of Chanel) were worn with aplomb in by The Preatures’ frontwoman Isabella Manfredi in particular. The band dared to disturb a post-opening soirée at an adjoining brasserie by performing song both old and new from their upcoming sophomore album, Girlhood. Their performance was pitch perfect, a fitting accompaniment to a collection heavy on metal and punctuated with hits.
You can check in at the Chanel at Marais boutique until July 9. More information is available here.
Tile and cover image: Courtesy of CHANEL
