Lagerfeld takes stick over his ‘forest’ catwalk

CHANEL has been accused of felling “century-old” trees to create a spectacular midwinter forest for its catwalk at Paris Fashion Week.

Karl Lagerfeld, the French fashion house’s artistic director, turned the Grand Palais into a wood, with mountains of dead leaves strewn on mirrored steps and nine towering, mossy oaks looking up to its glass canopy.

Some 508 poplar wood benches were also made for his guests, including Keira Knightley, Lily Allen and Carla Bruni Sarkozy.

But the France Nature Environment group denounced the extravaganza as “heresy”, accusing the luxury brand of trying to “give itself a more green image while completely divorced from the reality of protecting nature”.

FNE said in a statement: “Chanel has missed the point once again. The celebrated fashion house chose to present a ‘natural’ decor with real trees for its haute couture event. The result: trees, some of them a hundred years old, were chopped down for a few hours of show.

“Nature is not chopping down trees in a forest, putting them up for a few hours for a show and then throwing them into a skip.

“It would have been better, indeed innovatory, to set up the catwalk in the forest itself, rather than cut down trees to bring [them] to Paris.”

Stung by the criticism, Chanel issued a vehement riposte yesterday, insisting that none of the oak and poplar trees it sourced from a forest in western France were 100 years old.

“In buying the trees Chanel also promised to replant 100 new oak trees in the heart of the same forest,” the brand added in a statement.

The attack on its green credentials was the only dark spot for Lagerfeld’s Paris show, which received a plethora of praise.

Harper’s Bazaar waxed lyrical about the 84-year-old creator’s “lifelike forest”, adding that the “runway may be [Lagerfeld’s] best yet”, while Vogue praised the “impressive” decor.