Chanel Spring Summer 2019 Haute Couture show was a daydream which, for a magic moment, made Paris forget about this grey winter time…
Text by: Annarosa Laureti
There’s nothing to do, the Haute Couture is still the most marvelous appointement on the Fashion agenda!
We don’t talk about simple dresses to wear but truly masterpieces to admire as artworks. Behind every single piece there are hours and hours of the work of artisans who join their forces together to make dreams come true.
The Chanel Spring Summer 2019 Haute Couture collection is no exception, and with its spell brings a snowy Paris under the warm season’s sunny days.
On the occasion of the show in fact, Karl Lagerfeld welcomed his guests – brand’s ambassadors such as Kristen Stewart, Pharrell Williams, Tilda Swinton, Marine Vacth, Anna Mouglalis, Alma Jodorowsky and Caroline de Maigret, as well as the director Sofia Coppola, the actresses Tessa Thompson, Marion Cotillard – in a truly, and exclusive of course, locus amoenus.
The Grand Palais became a secret Mediterranean “à la française” (French style) garden of an enchanting Italian Villa.
Among several trees and Southern plant species, models walked along a linear catwalk – that surrounds a water pool – on the words of “Parole, parole”, the 70s Italian romantic hit by Mina and Alberto Lupo.
As we can easily notice from this setting, the entire Haute Couture collection is inspired by the Karl Lagerfeld’s beloved century, the XVIII one.
Elegance and refinement seems to be the keywords. Two are the main silhouettes shown: the first one, long, slender and highly graphic, has wide boat necklines, rounded and pointed shoulders and mid-calf lengths; the second one is more sinuous with bell and corolla shapes, full skirts, and busts with straight or balloon sleeves.
Every single piece is adorned by a particular construction detail that creates new volumes and trompe-l’oeil effects: for example there are dresses with reversed collars as those of boleros, zip-up or wraparound cutted to knee skirts, shouldered or lengtheted like tunics jackets.
Structural and geometrical lines are also marked in a the make-up – by Lucia Pica – that reinterprets the XVIII codes in a modern and “Bowiesquie” way. As the make-up artist revealed, the secret is in the “sharp graphic line going underneath the eye to add a graphic strength to it”.
However the file rouge of this collection is surely one of the XVIII artistic themes: that of flowers, declined in many different ways by Chanel ateliers.
Everything is literally in bloom: blossoms are embroidered, painted by hands, made in lace, in feathers, in resin and in ceramic; they appear even as skirts, that are opened like petals at the front or over the hips, and jewels as well, whose haute collection this year are inspired by Gabrielle Chanel’s iconic flower: the camelia.
The collection’s color palette also refers to this theme streching from pastel and springy tones of pink, green and light blue, inclunding at the same time dark hues of black and navy blue and glowing shades of gold and silver.
At the end of the show a last wonderful surprise took anyone without words: a stunning Vittoria Ceretti, starring the main character of this Chanel costume drama, walked the runway showing the new bride dress designed by Karl: an embroidered bathing suit with a swimming hat and a silver sequinned white veil.
Although very few women will have the privilege to wear such a wonderful collection, we can surely let this show fill our daydreams!
Cover: Chanel Spring Summer 2019 Haute Couture Collection, Photo by Olivier Saillant, Courtesy of Chanel
