{"id":7528,"date":"2009-12-07T08:31:09","date_gmt":"2009-12-07T16:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/?p=7528"},"modified":"2010-05-09T06:52:16","modified_gmt":"2010-05-09T14:52:16","slug":"karl-dynasty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/style\/fashion\/karl-dynasty","title":{"rendered":"Karl Dynasty"},"content":{"rendered":"
Fashion’s umber-active mind, Karl Lagerfeld, took us on a fantastically imaginative (and financially sound) turn in Shanghai last week with his latest Chanel pre-fall 2010 collection. With the iconic Shanghai TV-tower as the backdrop, Lagerfeld presented a stunning collection rich with Shinto-Franco sartorial cultural exchanges. Based on a fictional dream of Coco Chanel time-traveling through Shanghai’s golden eras, a ‘la Alice in Wonderland, Lagerfeld even made a short film as a prelude to the occasion, complete with historical characters real and imagined played hilariously by his entourage, that was dramatically acted out over Huangpu River.<\/p>\n
The real stars of the show, however, were the clothes: classic Chanel tweed suits received the traditional Chinese sartorial treatment based on cheongsam and qipao, juxtaposed with Last Emperor-worthy gold brocade; armor-like shingle embroideries adorned dresses and outerwear evocative of the terra-cotta army. Who knew that the famous Chanel quilted handbag was inspired by Chanel’s love of Chinoserie? Of interest were also this season’s popular thigh-high boots being made art-worthy to resemble exquisite Chinese porcelain vases and carved redwood furnitures. Certainly, the collection wouldn’t be fitting a Chinoserie-inspired one without a nod to the face of China, Chairman Mao, who, luckily, only reappeared in spirit in a pair of military green his and hers Mao tweed suits and comrade caps.<\/p>\n
Lagerfeld definitely scored Chanel an epic victory of dynastic proportion with this latest audience-minded collection. The famous interlocking C’s (Chanel and China in this case?) might not be flying atop the Imperial Palace, but a Karl dynasty in the Imperial Kingdom might not be a far-fetched reality: Chanel is staking its capital strategically with a new store in Shanghai’s nexus of consumerism that is the Bund, further stoking the appetite and loyalty of a nation that is fast on Japan’s heels to take over the title of the world’s next biggest luxury consumer market.<\/p>\n