There was hardly an inch of flesh on display at Chanel's catwalk show yesterday, as the designer Karl Lagerfeld unveiled an uncharacteristically cosy and covered-up autumn/winter collection.
In keeping with the overall mood at Paris fashion week so far, Lagerfeld kept to a sober colour scheme of black, white andgrey. Wrapped up from head to toe in soft salt-and-pepper coloured woollen tweed skirt suits, cashmere leggings, scarves and matching ski hats, all ingeniously woven with a camelia pattern, the army of models who strode down the Chanel catwalk were suitably dressed for Paris's snowstorms.
The classic wool boucle Chanel suit was re-invented once again with a mannish, hip-length jacket with short sleeves worn over lurex knits and a pleated 1980s-style skirt. The house's distinctive tweed tailoring, which was an innovation of founder Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, who favoured its practicality, is every season now copied by high-street fashion stores.
For autumn it comes either fused with fluffy knits or given a tartan-style weave for pea coats and bloomers, in shades of lavender and soft grey.
Another of Coco's inventions, the gilt-chained, quilted handbag, was yesterday reissued in black, white and grey. The bag, launched 50 years ago, is still one of the brand's most popular products.
A final sequence of black satin drop-waisted dresses decorated with bows edged in tiny pearls evoked Coco's breezy designs created at the beginning of her career in Deauville and Biarritz in the late 1920s.
In comparison to the floor-length gowns of last season's red carpet-style presentation, this was a far more youthful and practical offering from Chanel, in line with the mood of the season for wearable tailoring.
