Chanel: Past, Present and the Future
By Mari Davis
Photos by Javier Mateo

PARIS, Mar 5, 2004/ FW/ --- Karl Lagerfeld’s genius in interpreting Coco Chanel is a given with his continuous winning streak with the venerable fashion house since 1983.

Today at the Carrousel du Louvre, he went back in time, to the earliest days of the French fashion house, then turned around to catapult it to the future by incorporating boys (as in males) in a tomboyish, streetwise, urban wear Chanel collection.

According to fashion history, Mademoiselle Chanel purloined a shirt from her lover, the Duke of Westminster to start the biggest fashion revolution of the century – women wearing loose fitting tweed jackets instead of the curve-showing, bodice-hugging corsets.

The now famous and classic Chanel suit was born!

Coco Chanel’s place in history as an innovative designer is recognized the world over. Karl Lagerfeld’s contribution to the ever-changing world of fashion is also beyond question.

Put the two together and you get a forward thinking and groundbreaking fashion duo separated by time, yet very much alive and contemporary. The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts as proven by what was seen today on a faux asphalt runway featuring mannish jackets, cigarette pants and kangol hats.

To say that the show is about androgynous dressing will be incomplete. It is also a Chanel history lesson. It is about Coco Chanel’s vision. It is also about Karl Lagerfeld and his mastery of feeling the pulse of the market.

Several seasons ago, he put hip-hop on the Chanel runway, long before it was generally accepted in the U.S., the place where the hip-hop subculture was born, that this youth culture has gone mainstream.

And this time, Karl Lagerfeld shows his mastery of the fashion pulse once again by putting urban wear, in the elegant Chanel style of course, on the limelight.

There is menswear and womenswear, two sides of the coin. Like the North Pole and the South Pole, they are two opposing pulls of gravity.

Like Coco Chanel who combined them during the turn of the 20th century, Karl Lagerfeld is doing the same thing a hundred years later, running the gamut of modern styles from the androgynous tweed jackets to chic nylon parkas, to the most elegant of sweat suits – knitted cashmere hooded tops and pants in sorbet colors.

He even found time to design accessories which will be must haves come fall – small square purses, penny loafers, running shoes, two-toned army style boots, and the plethora of hats from knitted berets to ball caps.

And as always, he did not forget Chanel’s main clientele, sending beautiful tweed suits, wispy dresses and gowns on the runway.

Add to that Chanel's signature necklace, belt chains and logoed accessories, a woman cannot ask for more.

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