Sure, there’s some pretty bits and pieces in here, but some of it is truly ghastly. And yet Vogue positively tongue-bathed this collection, oh gee, and by the way, Karl Lagerfeld is the subject of the next Met Gala. I’m sure those two things are completely unrelated!!!!! Seriously, though, it’s as giddy and gushy a review as you will ever read. The last line praises Virginie Viard for using models with “all kinds of body types” — and let me tell you, I am super curious if you will look at this collection and think that is even remotely true enough; I counted maybe three models who didn’t look like all the rest — and then ends with, “For this and so much else, brava, Virginie, brava!” Wow. We also got this:
It’s easy to understand why Viard is so entranced by [Kristen] Stewart; she wears everything with the most laid-back, offhand, unaffected ease. From what she told Vogue in an interview years ago, it was clear fashion matters most to her when it speaks to who she really is and comes stripped of artifice and affectation. You could say the same about Viard.
I don’t think I have often looked at a Chanel ensemble and thought it was without affectation. (I am not sure ANY designer ensemble truly is?) But one reason this made me laugh is that it purports to be about lacking pretension, and then… allow me to present the lede of the piece, in its entirety:
Many have tried to decode director Alain Resnais’s beguiling/perplexing 1961 movie, L’Année Dernière à Marienbad. The nouvelle vague classic features a couple who may (or may not) know each other, and who may (or may not) have been in some kind of relationship with each other. They move through a black and white dreamscape of ornate gardens and grand staircases, where time seems to have no meaning and words don’t seem to matter a whole lot either; only the occasional gnomic statement is ever uttered (as far as I remember; it’s been a minute since I’ve seen it). Still, female lead Delphine Seyrig looks utterly fabulous as she exists in this semi-somnambulistic state, thanks to some of her costumes having been designed by Coco Chanel.
My eyes glazed over so often, I had to read it three times. Anyway, that movie was the collection’s influence, so… let’s dive in, I guess?
