Day: 03/03/2020

The Chanel To Love

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Vogue.com announced recently that the most viewed show on its Runway page is Chanel’s spring/summer 2020 collection. This season, too, looks destined to be another hit for the house. Welcome to the masterclass in consistency

 

Chanel AW 2020 P1

Chanel has become more consistent than its ever been: the consistent quality of designing the same way, over time. In the case of Virginie Viard, slightly over a year (the house announced on 19 February 2019 that she will take the place of the late Karl Lagerfeld). Chanel, more and more, and more than the average luxury brand, second the increasing believe that fashion design need not be complicated. In fact, the less in the exercise of design the better, especially for the bottom line. Ms Viard is, of course, not alone in taking the consistent-is-best route. In her good company is Maria Grazia Chiuri and the most consistent of them all, Hedi Slimane.

With consistency comes a susceptibility to the lacklustre. Consistency has the tendency to breed the latter. Styling can mask the lacklustre, and the styling at Chanel does that remarkably well. Even if you watch the show with lacklustre eyes, you may be seduced into seeing lack masquerading as lustre. Fashion is, after all, smoke and mirrors. It helps, of course, that Chanel has loads of costume jewellery to disguise the lacklustre, like fairy light and tinsel livening up what would mostly be insipid trees. And bags—loads of them—to throw you off the scent-of-lacklustre trail.

Chanel AW 2020 G1Chanel AW 2019 G2

Consistency and lacklustre are such dazzling partners that they make good runway. The Hadid sisters, regrettably, do pale. Consistency and lacklustre love an audience and the audience love them back. Chanel’s Conlack (in the convention of Brangelina, which Reuters noted back in 2006, “has more cultural equity than their two star parts”) we shall henceforth call consistency and lacklustre, plays to the pervasive social and all-important-front-row aspects well. In the past, fashion has no love for Conlack, but in the present, they have more cultural equity than any part Coco Chanel has ever imagined, beige and black too. And the celebrity-thick audience (presumably, and understandably, with less Conlack lovers from Asia) will lap up Conlack with as much enthusiasm as Marilyn Monroe—bless her soul—dousing herself in No 5, as she supposedly did.

Like news feeds, Conlack is with us more than it ever was. Ms Viard is aware of it too. She understands the power of Conlack and she draws on their immense potency to inflict delightful torture and tortured delight on the rapt audience. It does not matter that customers of Chanel, who could splurge without as much as fiddling with the camellia brooch before committing, are going to buy no matter how glaringly Conlack manifests this season, and they do appear with considerable clarity. Conlack likes no better than showing it can appeal to every woman, every wardrobe, every occasion, every trip to Daily Monop. It has mumsy jackets for madams of a certain age,  hotpants for the twentysomethings with legs, and everything between that Conlack can squeeze into, and it can squeeze itself into many things. Conlack, in case you didn’t notice, is thin. On what, you decide.

Chanel AW 2019 G3

Conlack has no voice; it is better at echoing. It echoes the voices of the dead; of the living; of the girls who wear their side-buttoned track pants unbuttoned, but no longer; of the KOLs who can’t get enough of hot pants because, well, of course, the weather demands it; of the executive who thinks a long-sleeved shift is work wear and wearing one will upstage co-users of the co-working space, of the crazy woman who slips her neckwear under her tube top because, frankly, crazies do. Conlack offers no surprise. Don’t expect strange bows behind the neck or shoulders that peak above the ears, or coats so roomy you can hide three of your children under them. Conlack loathes surprises. Ms Viard has moulded Conlack so perfectly and so ingeniously that it could reverse last year’s “fake news”, and entice LVMH to come a-calling with an acquisition offer. There is money to be made in Conlack. The world’s largest luxury group knows that.

Conlack is not only about the clothes. It can manifest itself in the hair and makeup too. Conlack hair is sad, no-effort hair. It is the cousin of hair that is synonymous with bad days. Or bridesmaids unwilling to outdo the bride. But Conlack hair is proud hair; it does not need to hide under a headscarf. Conlack makeup is no-colour makeup, the antithesis of what used to be Vamp and its entire dark ecosystem of irresistible products. It is also the opposite of Vamp’s life partner Camp. Conlack makeup is ready-to-rise and ready-to-bed. It is free of the palette, of shading, of highlights. Together with the clothes, Conlack is daily life and consumption that alters your propensity to discern and differ. Conlack, Chanel has shown once more, is top-to-toe—your total, all-loving, fashion-affirming dud(s).

Photos: Alessandro Lucioni/gorunway.com

 

And Let There Be Yeezy. Again

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Yeezy may need Paris, but does Paris need Yeezy?

 

Yeezy S8 P1

Yeezy disappeared for a couple of seasons. Sort of. They ‘showed’ via social media, modelled by the missus, of course, and styled, according to KKW herself, by Carine Roitfeld (probably not very busy at CR Fashion Book). And there were reported “private appointments”, presumably for trade buyers, not the rest of us. The collections S6 and S7 were available online, not seen, according to our sources in New York, in stores. Does anyone still remember Kanye West’s Yeezy fashion?

Season 8 is a return to a catwalk presentation and a reminder that the clothing is as alive as the sneakers, and still designed by Mr West, a newly religious man, who, a day before, conducted Kanye West presents Sunday Service in Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, a performance venue near the Gare, considered by the French to be a salle historique Parisienne, and one of the locations of Jean-Jacques Beineix’s 1981 film Diva. Setting is important when you do not have an actual church to conduct your song-led service in. What does a faith-guided collection prefaced by worship look like?

Yeezy S8 G1Yeezy S8 G2

The show itself takes place on the grounds of the French Communist Headquarters, against the futuristic façade of the Espace Niemeyer, designed by Brazilian architect, the late Oscar Niemeyer. Setting! According to pre-show excitement/reports (this is Yeezy, after all), Mr West will be presenting “a little piece from our home in Cody, Wyoming.” What a move from S6’s Calabasas! It’s 1,418 km apart, if you’re wondering. Cody, as we now know is where the West family has a 4000-acre (16,1874 square kilometres) ranch which they call home with 700 heads of sheep; it is also deeply tied to Colonel William Frederick Cody (hence its name)—the legendary Buffalo Bill. In addition, Cody considers itself “Rodeo Capital of the World”. Cowboy country. It won’t, therefore, be surprising if Season 8 will be, as part of a song goes, a little bit country.

It isn’t. Nor is it a little bit rock ‘n’ roll. Strike off any clerical garb, too. Yeezy just doesn’t fit with any particular vernacular, less so in Paris. It is simply Kanye West. Not more, not less. Not good, not bad. Thing is, if you’re neither this nor that, chances are, you’re in the betwixt, possibly the nether, a space called boring. It is hard to be aroused by non-fashion passed off as seasonal trends. That it all feels like you’ve seen them before adds to the needless dismay. Good enough for Cody does not mean good enough for Paris, not even with a dollop of Kim K—the bare midriff—for extra dash of what would otherwise be no flavour.

Yeezy S8 G3

To be sure, this is not an on-calendar show, which, technically, does not mean it is necessarily a PFW collection. Paris is an open city, anyone can go there to show. In fact, no one knew anything about the Yeezy Season 8 presentation until rumours were rife that the man was in town. Mr West, of course, has a flair for this sort of to-do-or-not-to-do news generating. Yet the pre-show buzz and the Sunday service cannot hoist S8 beyond a short fringe event. That there are only 18 looks (pal Virgil Abloh showed 41 for Off-White—already small, compared to Balenciaga’s staggering 105) augment the show’s and brand’s peripheral standing.

You can’t be certain what part these clothes could really play in your life if you take fashion seriously and live by it religiously. It is tempting to surmise that Mr West designs with his wife’s day-wear needs, and we shall. These are for running around Cody, running around in the cabin of planes, running after the kids (For evening wear, she has also-pal Olivier Rousteing.) To us, Yeezy is Mr West bringing Lululemon and Muji together, one cropped singlet after another, one cropped sleeveless puffer top after another, with the odd judoji worn with pants that look like the fly is open breaking the monotony (still, we can’t tell the difference between look 15 and 16). Perhaps Yeezy Season 8 is how Kanye West, believe it or not, squares faith and fashion.

Photos: Isidore Montag/gorunway.com