PARIS, Oct 5, 2007 / FW / --- The wealthy clientele of luxury ready-to-wear is very bourgeois par se and likes the politically correct. Therefore, it was probably a good commercial idea to raise the stars and stripes over the collection proposed by the arch-Parisian House of Chanel for Spring 2008, just after Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s new President, had chosen to spend his last summer holidays in the US with friends.

Attending Mr. Lagerfeld’s presentation for Chanel this season, one could not help but think also of the legendary American expatriate couple Gerald and Sara Murphy, who, in 1923, at their Cap d’Antibes Villa America, made the French Riviera fashionable for summer and sunbathing popular, with their picnics on the beach at La Garoupe.

That might explain the opening of bathing costumes, the Chanel stars and stripes suits, the omnipresence of denim, and justify the double C tennis racket and outfits, together with the overall feel of American sportswear revisited.

The trademarks of a house are popular, and bourgeois gogos like to buy items that are sealed with luxury brands’ logos and codes. For Chanel, the double C, the stars which are here usually called comets and have been advertised for many years in the jewelry line, the signature bow, the house’s legendary tweed suits.

From a commercial point of view, the collection was more than sufficiently sprinkled with these, with a stress this season over the comets to ensure that the sales of Chanel could be growing at a time when many a fashion house is playing it on the safe side.

The major innovations for the season are made in the accessories department mainly, obviously targeted at a younger set of customers: miniature ankle-strap purses, worn with skirts or dresses, and the bicycle clips with rhinestones worn over the ankles on baggy jeans.

Appliqués of contrasting circles on the sides of an evening dress, inspired from the 1930s, are the most innovative feature as far as clothes are concerned, together with a new shoulder line on some jackets that seems more rounded or with epaulettes that are side loaded. Some cocktail dresses in black integrate wide rivets with strings of silver chains going through them on the entire dress length, here over, here under the fabric, and dandling at the above the knee hemline. Evening looks often display a bottom half of organza, playing on transparency.

It may be said that the collection had many appealing looks, that easy and stylish clothes were not seen much on the Paris catwalks this week and that Chanel is catering for these needs with this collection, particularly with the denim fabric used, which seemed both soft and adamant to the luxury market.

One may also think of the summer 2008 seen by Chanel as an extremely marketed presentation with a younger clientele in mind but no real design innovation. But how could one ask any creative director, no matter how talented he can be, to bridge a gap of 40 to 50 years between his real age and the targeted customers, for any brand?

Chanel is not Dolce & Gabbana and something of the Parisian creative character was lost on the way in this quest to renew the clientele. Or is it that creativity is now reserved to haute couture only for the big houses?

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Chanel

Chanel

Chanel

Chanel

Chanel