‘The Modernity of Antiquity’ is what Karl Lagerfeld entitled Chanel’s Cruise 2018 collection. Composed like a return to origins, supple drapings and the elegance of fluid lines caressed silhouettes of tweed and jersey, linen and silk, all imagined by the Kaiser. “The beauty standards of Archaic and Classical Greece are still valid. There never were more beautiful silhouettes of women. And more beautiful columns. The entire Renaissance was actually based on Antiquity. It’s really the youth of the world, powerful and unpredictable, like their unforgiving gods,” the brand’s creative director explained.
Upon contact with this heritage, Chanel’s icons become more supple and sensual – Greek sleeves with draped or frilly shoulders structured the lines to compose a marked or belted waist. Spartan sandals with “column” heels spruce up the traditional Greek shoe. Karl Lagerfeld appropriated the codes of Antiquity to confidently give them a new twist: “Reality doesn’t interest me. I take what pleases me. My Greece is an idea.” By pairing his own liberty with the symbols of antiquity and Coco’s own lucky charms, Lagerfeld brings Chanel a number of pieces as elegant as they are symbolic – like the coins adorning a small bag that also shows off Gabrielle’s telltale wheat motif.
The iconic suit appears in a dazzling Cycladic white to bring all the nobility of a light woven tweed trapeze jacket that illuminates the iconic suite, which is this time rounded at the hips like an amphora. An admirer of the ancient world, Karl Lagerfeld transcends codes to anchor the suit in the line’s timelessness with the spirit and allure of Chanel, which in and of itself is the cradle of our own modernity. Presented in the Grand Palais, the collection was graced by the presence of the brand’s muses, from Caroline de Maigret to Keira Knightley or Anna Mouglalis. Directors Pedro Almodóvar and Deniz Gamze Ergüven were also present and accounted for.
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