With a blend of art meets fashion, Karl Lagerfeld began the Chanel show with a gallery of art pieces, some of which celebrities like Katy Perry tried to quickly buy up before the show even began. The collection in and of itself is a colorful satire on the world of art and how it’s perceived in the realm of fashion. “The idea came from people who overreact to art today. It’s all become a little too much,” Largerfeld said of the collection during a preview. But the fashion shown at his Spring 2014 show during Paris Fashion Week was a beautiful combination of the two dynamics.
I imagine that every woman in the world at one point or another wants to own Chanel. And until recent years it seemed that you had to wait until you hit the age of 50 lest you ending up looking like you’re wearing your grandmother’s tweed suit. But it’s been looking younger and younger, and now with bright pastels, backless vests and sweater-tied crop-tops, I feel that I’ve now become too old for some of it.
Crop tops aside, the collection is stunning in its variety of color—some pieces styled in classic Chanel back and white and others done up in bright pinks, soft pastels or a rainbow palette of color. Literally. A line of art dresses complete with brush strokes and varying degrees of shaded hues brings this idea of art vs. fashion to a point of obvious symbolism. And it didn’t help that some of the models were toting sketchpads and paint brushes. We get it.
And while I’m sort of in love with the entire spectrum of color on one dress, I can’t help but notice the influence of Japanese pop culture. I feel like Lagerfeld sat down to watch a schoolgirl anime before he began to sketch this spring collection. Anime eyes? Check. Square sailor back? Check. Scrunched knee socks? Double check. And somehow, even though I’m aware of how horrible the real life application of this can be, I find myself wanting to rifle through my sock drawer for all my slouchy knee-highs.
And while the collection is monstrous (almost 90 looks came down the runway), a large majority of it is wearable, youthful and beautiful, assuming you ditch the art brushes of course. Quite honestly, I can’t really imagine a Chanel collection that doesn’t have pieces you want to stuff your closet with. Chanel is THE house of fashion. Even with tied crop-tops and in-your-face satire, they can do no wrong.