Vogue UK has the scoop on Chanel’s SS17 tech-inspired runway show.
Karl Lagerfeld likes to bounce from one extreme to the next. His last show, couture, celebrated les petites mains; the couture seamstresses who painstakingly hand-sew every sublime stitch on every fairytale gown and boucle suit. While models sauntered around, he showed them all at work, in the background beavering away on toiles and patterns. It was a window into the true artisanal, the very thing that makes Chanel unique and desired.
This morning’s show, staged at the Grand Palais, was a giant leap into the future. Tech heads delight; show-goers were invited into Chanel’s data centre, a runway bordered with towering servers blinking in lights and loaded with colourful cabling and wires hooked up to heaven knows what – Chanel’s computer brain? Donna Summer’s I Feel Love blasted out and out came the first exit: a robot in a white lacquer full-face helmet, gloves and boots dressed in the chicest ivory tweed skirt suit. It could have been Gisele, as someone quipped, another robot came in a black version of the same suit.
Lagerfeld was thinking about the next generation of Chanel shoppers and this was a youth-centric collection that zapped from silky shirt dresses and gowns printed in multicoloured laser beams or otherwise neon squiggles – the sort that you draw with a finger on Snapchat and Instagram Stories – to summery tweed skirt suits that looked to be woven from cables with frayed ends, so too the chunky knits. Lagerfeld was quick to jump on the single earring trend, too, while caps with exaggerated peaks were worn sideways rude-girl style, and handbags flashed with LED lights spelling out CHANEL, while clutches were decorated in glittery circuit boards. All destined to be a hit with the kids. No one can say Karl doesn’t roll with the times.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!