Perhaps it needs to be lost before it could be found

This could be Chanel’s last chance at dreadful. Just as you thought that they couldn’t do more damage than they already have to their brand, they showed their most deplorable collection. It was so lacking in any merit this season that it was lost in its own terribleness. While it is understandable that the house is without a captain (Matthieu Blazy will reportedly start work next month), it is not clear why the “in-house studio” in charge of the past few collection could just throw in everything except the proverbial kitchen sink. Chanel can’t not be aware of the many who consider their collections in recent years to be particularly detestable, even expressing their displeasure on the brand’s Instagram posts. Was there really a need for this show?

But they went for it, with a presentation at their favourite Grand Palais. The set was a nod to the rubans (ribbons) Chanel uses as trims and other decorative touches on their clothes and accessories. A thick, stiff black piece, reportedly measuring some 20 metres, meandered through the cavernous nave; at one end, spiraling towards the glass barrel-vaulted roof. It marked out the show space like partition panels, as if a wake was to be held within. This would be remembered for one of Chanel’s lamest sets. While there was no mise en scène in the stripped down affair, the soundtrack was a curious jumble of the neo-classical (movie soundtrack?) for the opening to techno dance beats such as Canadian composer Daphni’s Fly Away and Faithless’s Insomnia, and then back to Fly Away and the percussion-free swirl, before Sash’s Encore Une Fois (Once Again) for the finale, all in a monotonous thump of Beng party drone.

This was not a celebration of the “house codes” (those dreaded house codes!) that so many would later happily declare. It was a haunting, a possession of the past, of ghosts who won’t leave the maison alone, of ribbons that cannot be ripped. Chanel has used their identifiable signatures in the past before—camelia and buttons, to name two—but this time it is the worst. Anywhere ribbons can be taped to, trimmed or trailed, they do, even appliqué-as-ruban. And if those were insufficient, there were prints of swirling ribbons. When you have ribbons, you have bows, Chanel enlightened. So those, too, popped up everywhere they could. Sometimes plentifully to garland the neckline, sometimes singly as pussy bows, And on one knit two-piece, a frightful bow-shaped cut-out (outlined in white stitches) below the neckline and, above the hemline of the skirt, a row of them. Even clowns use bows more purposefully.

Trims were not the only strange twist in this Chanel outing. The show opened with about nine unsurprising Chanel looks (choose your favourite), all with a sheer tulle draped over them, some in the form of capes, others outers, and more not dissimilar to rain covers for expensive bags. What these lightweight, transparent sheaths could do for an autumn/winter collection as warmth-giving protective wear was not made known. It was tempting to think that the team responsible for the collection knew not what they did. The jumble of ideas (supersized pearls, worn crossbody!) was not only denied the benefit of editing, it revealed a do-as-much-as-you-can-and-more prerogative at Chanel. In the end, could all that not be trimmed? Perhaps, all had to be out because this was the last hurrah?

Screen shot (top): Chanel/YouTube. Photos: Chanel