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Only the mightiest fashion brand in the world could persuade the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to host a fashion show within its hallowed halls. For the first time in 36 years, the Met – scene of the famous ball and countless sell-out fashion exhibitions – allowed Karl Lagerfeld to present Chanel’s annual Métiers d’art collection inside the famed Egyptian Wing, at the foot of the 10 BC Temple of Dendur, no less.
The 2,000-year-old backdrop – flanked by a belt of stars, from Margot Robbie and Blake Lively to Julianne Moore and Penélope Cruz – can’t have come cheap. But then, Chanel is hardly known for ignoring financial limitations when it comes to putting on high-wattage spectacles. Particularly for this, its annual Métiers d’art collection, which doubles as a tribute to the 26 Chanel-owned ateliers – the now flourishing specialist fashion businesses that Chanel rescued from near extinction – each one dedicated to a specific art such as embroidery, button making, feather working and costume jewellery.
Typically, this was a gigantic mash-up of mind-boggling references and mindblowing detail. Lagerfeld, who can never resist a play on words, called it not Luxor (the city on the Nile) but ‘Lux Or’ (Lux Gold), referring to the gilt woven through everything from the house’s famous tweed to the models’ gold-painted legs. ‘ What really struck me with this show is how profound Karl’s vision is,’ declared Lagerfeld’s longtime creative collaborator Amanda Harlech post-show, before decoding what it all meant. ‘New York to him was about the ’20s, the jazz age, but also this whole love of Egyptology – when Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered – and there was this whole rage for Egyptionising everything. And then, this being Karl, he whipped it up into the present by creating these Hiero-ffiti – hieroglyphs and graffiti
in the mix – and suddenly we’re in 1980s New York.’ All of which meant there was a synergy between the long, elegant multi-tiered silhouettes, metallic leather jeans and deconstructed denim, embroideries of the Chrysler building and dazzling scarabs that called to mind both the brand’s heritage, New York City’s skyscrapers and unearthed treasure.
The graffiti artist Cyril Kongo, who grew up in the suburbs of Paris and casually quotes Baudelaire, had been drafted in by Lagerfeld to create art work for the show’s invitation, which then formed the prints emblazoned on jackets, dresses and the house’s famous quilt bags. ‘Karl gave me carte blanche,’ said the artist, who described himself as ‘Mr Colourful’ at the after-party in Central Park. We were inside the specially constructed Chanel ‘diner’, where Kelula sang on stage and celebrities milled about eating burgers and fries. ‘Karl asked me to interpret my graffiti art with hieroglyphs and invited me to work for a month in his personal studio in Quai Voltaire, but I only discovered today how he had used my work,’ he added. ‘For me, he is a genius, a god. And I’m living in a dream, I really have to pinch myself.’
The colour and energy in the clothes was, naturally, all high-impact glamour ( just like those ancient Egyptians), but also unusual in that no exotic animal skins had been used in the making of the collection. An announcement came ahead of the show that Chanel, like Gucci and Burberry, had ceased to use stingray, crocodile or any other exotic skins, proving the brand is in step with these eco-conscious times. The move is hardly likely to dent Chanel’s fortunes. The company, controlled by the secretive Wertheimer family, recently revealed its worldwide revenues for the first time in its 108-year history. In 2017, global sales hit $9.6 billion, an almost 12% increase on the previous year.
Karl, who is now 85, appeared at the end of the show alongside his godson, Hudson, and Virginie Viard, his head of studio for the past 25 years. This fuelled rumours that Virginie might one day take over from him, while simultaneously squashing all speculation that the most prestigious design job in fashion might go to ex- Celine’s Phoebe Philo.
Whoever does inevitably take on the mantle, Karl’s are probably the greatest fashion shoes to fill of all time. But why dwell on succession when the king of fashion still continues to amaze us? The day after the show, we were invited to a screening of 7 Days Out, the new Netflix documentary about the making of last summer’s Chanel couture collection – one of six blockbuster collections that he must conjure up on a yearly basis. In it, Lagerfeld describes himself, hilariously, as ‘working class’, and an ostrich feather-trimmed dress as resembling ‘the hair on an old man’s arse’. It’s well worth viewing when it comes out on 21 December. Long live Karl.